The data, measured by a three-wavelength Integrating Nephelometer over Lanzhou City during the winters of 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 respectively, have been analyzed for investigating the scattering properties of atmospheric aerosols and exploring their relationship and the status of air pollution. The aerosol particle volume distribution is inverted with the measured spectral scattering coefficients. The results show that the daily variation of the aerosol scattering coefficients is in a tri-peak shape. The average ratio of backscattering coefficient to total scattering coefficient at 550 nm is 0.158; there exists an excellent correlation between the scattering coefficients and the concentration of PM10. The average ratio of the concentration of PM10 to the scattering coefficients is 0.37 g m-2, which is contingent on the optical parameters of aerosol particles such as the size distribution, etc.; an algorithm is developed for inverting the volume distribution of aerosol particles by using the histogram and Monte-Carlo techniques, and the test results show that the inversion is reasonable.