Over the past 50 years, air quality management has come a long way. In the early years the focus of the Society was mainly on point source industrial processes in a local area. Public interest in air pollution was also high following number of killer smogs in major cities in Europe and the US. Most of the effects that were being dealt with were acute and legislation responded to this.

Since then we have continued to make an impact and as a profession we can be proud of the success and influence that we have had. In most urban environments in Australia and NZ, the contribution of industry to air emissions is now minor relative to the contributions from motor vehicles and domestic fires.

The international community has also successfully worked together on important agreements such as the Stockholm Convention, Montreal Protocol, Long Range Transport of Air Pollutants and the Minamata convention.

Now air quality management is more about dealing with a range of diffuse air pollution sources, some of which have global impacts.

I expect we will still be working on air quality management over the foreseeable future, but we will also be dealing with new issues we don’t yet know much about or hadn’t even thought of.

Janet Petersen, Society President