Analysis of health impact assessment to outdoor and indoor air pollution in a prototype building in Madrid (Spain)

Abstract

People spend major part of their time inside places such as homes and offices, so it is very important to know the indoor and outdoor pollution in this type of studies. The atmospheric dispersion model WRF/Chem is used to know the outdoor pollution and meteorological conditions with high spatial (1 km) and temporal (1-hour) resolution and the building energy model EnergyPlus to simulate the indoor contaminants. EnergyPlus model is used to investigate the dynamic behaviour of pollutants with a single package using a multizone approach. 2016 year is used for the simulations with hourly outputs. Outdoor and indoor pollutions are linked to through the simulated infiltration process. The evaluation of outdoor, indoor air quality and human health effects was carried out considering different exposure profiles, for people working and living in an office and house located in the same building in the Madrid city center. The study takes into account different ventilation modes in the building and indoor emission scenarios (oven for heating, cooking, photocopy machine, smoke cigarettes). Health impact assessment considered mortality and hospital admissions, associated with exposure to PM2.5 and NO2 taking into account the differences between the exposure profiles, which have been used to describe the time activity patterns of the people. The health impacts of emitting sources are highest in the warm months due to the operation of the air conditioning system. The health impact of indoor emission sources is higher than the outdoor pollution. People in the zone where the emitting sources are located would experience a mortality and morbidity of 2.5 times more than in the non-emitting zones.