Since the inaugural symposium at the Pennsylvania State University in 1977, the venues for the series of biennial symposia on turbulent shear flows have alternated between the USA and Europe. For the Sixth Symposium, the first to be held in France, the city of Toulouse proved a natura] choice, being a centre for the aerospace industry, meteorological research and higher education. The meeting was hosted by the Paul Sabatier University on the southern perimeter of the city, and there nearly 300 workers in the field of turbulence converged to pronounce upon, debate and absorb the current issues in turbulent shear flows and to enjoy the unfailing September sunshine. The meeting had attracted more than 200 offers of papers from which just over 100 full papers and about 20 shorter communications in open forums could be accommodated. The present volume contains 28 of the original symposium presentations selected by the editors. Each contribution has been revised by its authors – sometimes quite extensively -in the light of the oral presentation. It is our hope that the selection provides a substantial statement of permanent interest on current research in the five areas covered by this book, i.e. fundamentals and closures, scalar transport and geophysical flows, aerodynamic flows, complex flows, and numerical simulations.