In order to improve the science and effectiveness of traceability and localization of hazardous gas leaks,determining the location and intensity of dangerous gas leaks is the key to emergency response to accidents.The Gaussian plume model was modified by analyzing the mass conservation law and improving the diffusion amplitude of the gas plume with an approximate Gaussian distribution.Additionally,a heuristic algorithm based on the principle of immunization—IA coupled with PSO—was proposed,and the PSO-IA algorithm was applied to source strength inversion.It is concluded that the modified Gaussian plume model has been verified by three classical algorithms(PS,GA and PSO),resulting in a prediction value error decreased by about 2%.PSO algorithm,which showed a better inversion effect,was selected for comparison with the PSO-IA algorithm.The PSO-IA algorithm has improved the effect of inverting source strength,with a localization error is 1.3 m,a source strength solving error of 0.8%,and a single computation time of less than 1 second.This enables fast and accurate positioning and estimation of source strength.