This is volume I of the two-volume special issue Scattering and Attenuation of Seismic Waves which will contain total 17 invited review papers and about 30 c- tributed papers. The scope and contents of the special issue are described in the following Introduction. This volume includes 21 contributed papers arranged in the following order: Scattering theory and modeling including the scattering attenuation and its separation from the intrinsic attenuation; numerical method and simulation; field observation including coda Q and surface wave Q measurement; inversion; laboratory attenuation measurement of rock samples. We thank the following colleagues for reviewing manuscripts for the special issue: J. D. Achenbach, D. L. Anderson, N. C. Banik, D. R. Baumgardt, A. Ben-Menahem, J. G. Berryman, N. Biswas, N. Bleistein, D. M. Boore, M. Bouchon, J. N. Brune, T. Q. Cao, J. Capon, C. H. Cheng, B. Chouet, E. Cranswick, A. Dainty, P. M. Davis, z. A. Der, A. Frankel, I. N. Gupta, R. A. W. Haddon, D. HeImberger, R. B. Herrmann, J. D. Hudson, E. Husebye, A. S. Jin, L. Knopoff, K. L. Lamer, P. C. Leary, W. H. K. Lee, I. Lerche, A. R. Levander, Y. G. Li, P. Malin, T. V. McEvilly, K. L. McLaughlin, W. Menke, R. F. Mereu, W. D. Mooney, G. D. Nelson, R. L. Nowack, A. M. Nur, O. W. NuttIi, H. J. Patton, J. Y. Peng, W. A. Peppin, W. S.