The conference about Odours in the Environment organized by the German Association of Engineers (VDI) on a biennial basis took place the 24th and 25th of November 2021 in the city of Wiesbaden. This conference serves as a forum for local discussions in German language. This year there was a special focus on odour from farms in this event, as many, many papers dealt with this topic.

   Now, if you are interested in odour management, and you understand a bit of German, this is the place to be every two years. This time, the event was hybrid so many people could attend the meeting online. Only a few people could attend the meeting personally in order to keep an adequate separation distance.

   The keynote was given by the well known Ms. Kirsten Sucker, Research Associate; Project Coordination "Odours and irritants at the workplace", Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine of the German Social Accident Insurance, Institute of the Ruhr University Bochum (IPA). Her talk dealt with the psychology of odour nuisance. Ms Sucker made an interesting presentation comparing odour pollution vs odour nuisance, analysing the differences between these two concepts using the multimodal model of odour nuisance formation. Then she presented some aspects related to the odour quality, intensity and hedonics from the perspective of residents. Finally, Ms. Sucker discussed a bit about the scientific basis for the ambient air values included in the new German legislation.

  Germany has an air pollution control regulation titled "Technical Instructions on Air Quality Control" (Technische Anleitung zur Reinhaltung der Luft) and commonly referred to as the TA Luft. There were some captivating presentations dealing with the implications of the new TA LUFT, that since this month it has limits of odour in ambient air.

   Another session dealt with ambient air control and animal welfare. Many farms are being built now that keep the animals with more space and access to free air. Old methodologies based on the odour management of traditional farming are not valid any more. Many interesting approaches were discussed and presented on this topic.

   The following day, a couple of papers dealt with the measurement of uncertainties of dynamic olfactometry. Another presentation focused on the passive area sources, hood measurements and different sampling strategies on biofilters. After, a presentation dealing with uncertainty under the grid method EN 16841-1 was carried out and later a presentation on a large German field test for validation of IOMS was presented.

  The last session of this VDI conference dealt with odour dispersion calculation. Dispersion calculations with different upstream wind field models in the vicinity of odour sources were presented. Later, a fascinating talk on the effective roughness length from wind measurements was discussed. The last talk dealt with the new initiative on the International Handbook for the determination of odour emission by means of dispersion modelling.

 There was also a small, but beautiful ceremony, in which Ms. Anke Niebaum and Ms. Isabelle Franzen-Reuter gave the the Badge of Honour of the VDI Verein Deutscher Ingenieure e.V., the Association of German Engineers to Ms. Kirsten Sucker, Mr. Dietmar Mannebeck and Mr. Dietmar Öttl.

   If you find this article interesting, you might be also interested in these articles:

• 9th IWA Odour & VOC/Air Emission Conference 26-27 October 2021 Bilbao, Spain
• Odours in the Environment, a different kind of conference organised by the Association of German Engineers VDI.
• Open the call for papers for next VDI Conference on Environmental Odours, 20-21 November 2019
• 7th VDI Conference. Odours in the environment 15-16 Nov. 2017, Nuremberg, Germany
• Call for papers for next VDI Odour Conference