Monitoring and auditing of indoor air quality in European buildings: status and perspectives

In the context of the EC’s initiatives on indoor air quality (IAQ) for the last 25 years attention has been paid on the development of harmonization methods and tools to reliably assess exposure to indoor air pollutants in various buildings typologies and to tackle the emissions source control issue in the EU Member States. These methods and tools are to play a key role in both assessing the indoor air status conditions and managing health risks in energy efficiency buildings in the EU. The EC DG SANCO funded INDOOR AIR MONIT project which was led by DG Joint Research Centre (2010-2012), developed a framework of harmonised criteria, protocols and monitoring techniques for indoor air pollutants to cope with five different IAQ objectives: 1) guideline compliance; 2) health and comfort complaints; 3) remediation efficiency; 4) source attribution of indoor air pollution and 5) population exposure survey. Each of these IAQ objectives has its own specific scope, targets and associated operational practices. The recent AIRLOG project (www.iaq-airlog.eu) took a step further focusing on the operationalization and practical implementation aspects of INDOOR AIR MONIT methods. AIRLOG introduced a sixth dimension to put emphasis and cope with the necessity of integrating IAQ measurements and modelling. This includes appropriate consideration of the type and strength of indoor air sources and, ultimately, the ventilation level, since the early design phase of a building. This dimension was more recently conceptually elaborated in the context of the EU funded HEALTHVENT project (www.healthvent.eu). This project presented a strategy which coupled source control with health-based ventilation requirements.JRC.I.1-Chemical Assessment and Testin