Air quality simulation through cellular automata

In this paper we present some applications of Cellular Automata to environmental problems and a model for air pollution simulation based on this approach. The proposed model differs from those based on the analytical or numerical solution of the transport and diffusion equation because there is no attemp to mimic continuous variables, but the discretization in space and time is intrinsic in the model. The model, though based on a very simple, linear local updating rule, has shown interesting features: it can be easily calibrated to be consistent with the results of commonly accepted air pollution models, it can immediately fit different environmental conditions and can be easily implemented on SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) machines, thus effectively exploiting the parallelization inherent to the CA approach.