Assessment of occupant-behavior-based indoor air quality and its impacts on human exposure risk: A case study based on the wildfires in Northern California
Abstract
he recent wildfires in California, U.S., have caused not only significant losses to human life and property, but also serious environmental and health issues. Ambient air pollution from combustion during the fires could increase indoor exposure risks to toxic gases and particles, further exacerbating respiratory conditions. This work aims at addressing existing knowledge gaps in understanding how indoor air quality is affected by outdoor air pollutants during wildfires -- by taking into account occupant behaviors (e.g., movement, operation of windows and air-conditioning) which strongly influence building performance and occupant comfort. A novel modeling framework was developed to simulate the indoor exposure risks considering the impact of occupant behaviors by integrating building energy and occupant behaviour modeling with computational fluid dynamics simulation. Occupant behaviors were found to exert significant impacts on indoor air flow patterns and pollutant concentrations, based on which, certain behaviors are recommended during wildfires. Further, the actual respiratory injury level under such outdoor conditions was predicted. The modeling framework and the findings enable a deeper understanding of the actual health impacts of wildfires, as well as informing strategies for mitigating occupant health risk during wildfires.
- Authors:
-
- Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Inst. of Public Safety Research; Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Beijing Key Laboratory of City Integrated Emergency Response Science; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Building Technology and Urban Systems Div.
- Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Inst. of Public Safety Research; Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China). Beijing Key Laboratory of City Integrated Emergency Response Science
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Building Technology and Urban Systems Div.
- Tsinghua Univ., Hefei (China). Hefei Institute for Public Safety
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1545161
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1692004
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Science of the Total Environment
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 686; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0048-9697
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Human exposure risk; Indoor air quality; Occupant behavior; Respiratory injury; NAPA wildfire; Computational fluid dynamics simulation
Citation Formats
Luo, Na, Weng, Wenguo, Xu, Xiaoyu, Hong, Tianzhen, Fu, Ming, and Sun, Kaiyu. Assessment of occupant-behavior-based indoor air quality and its impacts on human exposure risk: A case study based on the wildfires in Northern California. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.467.
Luo, Na, Weng, Wenguo, Xu, Xiaoyu, Hong, Tianzhen, Fu, Ming, & Sun, Kaiyu. Assessment of occupant-behavior-based indoor air quality and its impacts on human exposure risk: A case study based on the wildfires in Northern California. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.467
Luo, Na, Weng, Wenguo, Xu, Xiaoyu, Hong, Tianzhen, Fu, Ming, and Sun, Kaiyu. Tue .
"Assessment of occupant-behavior-based indoor air quality and its impacts on human exposure risk: A case study based on the wildfires in Northern California". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.467. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1545161.
@article{osti_1545161,
title = {Assessment of occupant-behavior-based indoor air quality and its impacts on human exposure risk: A case study based on the wildfires in Northern California},
author = {Luo, Na and Weng, Wenguo and Xu, Xiaoyu and Hong, Tianzhen and Fu, Ming and Sun, Kaiyu},
abstractNote = {he recent wildfires in California, U.S., have caused not only significant losses to human life and property, but also serious environmental and health issues. Ambient air pollution from combustion during the fires could increase indoor exposure risks to toxic gases and particles, further exacerbating respiratory conditions. This work aims at addressing existing knowledge gaps in understanding how indoor air quality is affected by outdoor air pollutants during wildfires -- by taking into account occupant behaviors (e.g., movement, operation of windows and air-conditioning) which strongly influence building performance and occupant comfort. A novel modeling framework was developed to simulate the indoor exposure risks considering the impact of occupant behaviors by integrating building energy and occupant behaviour modeling with computational fluid dynamics simulation. Occupant behaviors were found to exert significant impacts on indoor air flow patterns and pollutant concentrations, based on which, certain behaviors are recommended during wildfires. Further, the actual respiratory injury level under such outdoor conditions was predicted. The modeling framework and the findings enable a deeper understanding of the actual health impacts of wildfires, as well as informing strategies for mitigating occupant health risk during wildfires.},
doi = {10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.467},
journal = {Science of the Total Environment},
number = C,
volume = 686,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Tue Jun 04 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
Web of Science
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