Breathing City: Future Urban Ventilation Network

人们普遍认为，空气质量差会影响人类健康和福祉。在整个生命过程中，累积接触污染物是许多长期健康状况的决定因素，包括痴呆症、心脏病和糖尿病，短期高接触污染物会加剧哮喘和慢性阻塞性肺病等疾病，增加心脏病发作和中风的风险，并影响呼吸道感染。幼童、老人和那些已有疾病的人面临的风险最大，而不平等进一步加剧了这一风险；社会上最贫穷的人往往住在污染最严重地区质量最差的住房里。人体在室内和室外环境中都会接触到空气污染物。城市空气污染是由当地室外污染源（例如运输、燃烧、工业）和污染物的区域和大规模大气输送共同造成的。我们90%的时间是在室内度过的，因此室内空气质量是人类暴露的重要组成部分。室内空气质量受到气候、天气和外部环境空气质量的影响，此外还受到当地室内污染源（例如微生物、化学品清洁和个人护理、烹饪、工业过程、建筑材料排放、供暖和机械系统）以及建筑设计和操作的影响。在所有情况下，是室内和室外位置内部和之间的气流使污染物得以运输并最终决定人类暴露。因此，了解气流是制定有效缓解措施的核心，特别是在去除污染源能力有限的情况下。能够预测气流的影响，可以了解污染物如何在城市建筑物内部和建筑物之间移动，无论是在正常的日常条件下，还是在应对诸如热浪或野火等紧急情况时。有了正确的计算和测量工具，就有可能改变城市社区的设计或管理，实现更好的城市流动，减少污染物的暴露，并创新新的通风解决方案，以控制建筑物的室内环境。虽然已经有一些办法能够评估城市流量和室内流量，但目前没有综合考虑这些方面，也没有把重点放在优化环境以促进健康上。未来城市通风网络（FUVN）旨在通过定义一种新的整体方法——呼吸城市来解决这个问题。这将定义一种新的综合评估方法，该方法将室内和室外气流结合在一起，以最大限度地减少社区内最容易受到恶劣空气质量影响的人们的暴露。该网络将汇集来自不同学科和应用领域的人员，他们对改善城市和室内空气流动以改善健康有共同的兴趣。通过小规模的研究和研讨会活动，我们将推进对流体动力学的理解，流体动力学决定了这种室内-室外交换的物理性质。该网络将制定一项研究计划，以解决模拟和测量污染物运输方面的技术差距，以及我们如何利用这些技术来确定长期和短期暴露于一系列污染物的情况。我们将与行业、政策制定者和公众合作，了解这种方法如何改变城市规划、建筑设计指导和社区行动，以实现基于健康的未来城市通风设计，并为最脆弱的人群“设计”健康风险。

Poor air quality is widely recognised to affect human health and wellbeing. Cumulative exposure to pollutants throughout the life course is a determinant for numerous long term health conditions including dementia, heart disease and diabetes, Short term high exposures are shown to exacerbate conditions such as asthma and COPD, increase risks of heart attacks and stroke and influence respiratory infections. The very young, very old and those with pre-existing conditions are most at risk and inequality further increases this; the poorest in society often live in the lowest quality housing in the most polluted areas. Human exposure to air pollutants occurs in both indoor and outdoor environments. Urban air pollution results from a combination of local outdoor sources (e.g. transport, combustion, industry) and regional and large scale atmospheric transport of pollutants. We spend up to 90% of our time indoors and indoor air quality is therefore a significant part of human exposure. Indoor air quality is influenced by the climate, weather and air quality in the external environment in addition to local indoor sources (e.g. microorganisms, chemicals cleaning and personal care, cooking, industry processes, emissions from building materials, heating and mechanical systems) and the building design and operation. In all cases it is the airflows within and between indoor and outdoor locations that enables the transport of pollutants and ultimately determines human exposures. Understanding airflows is therefore at the heart developing effective mitigating actions, particularly in cases where there is limited ability to remove a pollutant source. Being able to predict the influence of airflows enables understanding of how pollutants are likely to move within and between buildings in a city, both under normal day-to-day conditions and in response to emergencies such as heatwaves or wildfires. With the right computational and measurement tools it is then possible to change the design or management of city neighbourhoods enabling better urban flows to reduce exposure to pollutants and also to innovate new ventilation solutions to control the indoor environment in buildings. While there are a number of approaches that already enable assessment of urban flows and indoor flows, these aspects are not currently considered together in an integrated way or focused on optimising environments for health. The Future Urban Ventilation Network (FUVN) aims to address this by defining a new holistic methodology - the Breathing City. This will define a new integrated assessment approach that considers coupled indoor-outdoor flows together to minimise exposure for people within a neighbourhood who are most at risk from the effects of poor air quality. The network will bring together people from a range of disciplines and areas of application with a common interest in improving urban and indoor airflows to improve health. Through small scale research and workshop activities we will advance the understanding of the fluid dynamics that determines the physics of this indoor-outdoor exchange. The network will develop a research programme to address technical gaps in modelling and measuring pollutant transport and how we can use this to determine long and short term exposures to a range of pollutants. We will work collaboratively with industry, policy makers and the public to understand how this approach could change city planning, building design guidance and community actions to enable health based future urban ventilation design and to "design out" health risks for people who are most vulnerable.