Indoor air pollution study

Abstract

Ambient air quality has always been an area of great interest due to its implications on the health and welfare of the population, but also because of its potential effect on other environmental factors and historical monuments. Especially in the last decades, studies have brought to the forefront of scientific concerns a new field - indoor air quality (IAQ) - giving it a status that is sometimes priority in terms of influence on the health and comfort of people (Franklin, 2007; Harrison, 1997; Nazaroff, 2013). Assessing air quality in a building and impacts on receptors of interest is a process of high complexity due to the large amount of data to be analyzed and interpreted, the large number of variables and possible reciprocal, synergistic or antagonistic influences with effect on materials and / or the perception of human discomfort. In this sense, throughout the thesis, based on literature and case studies, we have tried to answer three major questions: i) how do we approach and identify the interest indicators for assessing the air quality in a building? ii) by what methods do we measure, process and interpret effectively the series of monitoring data to identify specific sources of pollution and air quality assessment? iii) how do we quantify the impact of air quality on receptors?