Dynamic risk assessment of re-construction dust from abandoned industrial buildings: A human-dust interaction perspective

Abstract

Health risk assessment (HRA) is a well-established and widely used tool for quantitatively assessing the health status and likelihood of future illness and death of an individual or group. The dynamic properties of reconstruction dust from abandoned industrial buildings significantly affect HRA results. In recent years, dynamic health risk assessment (DHRA) has become an emerging research field. However, research on DHRA is still in the preliminary stage, and the research and application of its dynamic factors lack systematic analysis. Examining data transformation pathways through the U.S. Environmental Agency (USEPA) standard HRA framework, this study formalizes two distinct elements of dynamic assessment, namely, dynamic construction procedures and dynamic construction behaviour from a human-dust interaction perspective. Then, a DHRA framework for reconstruction dust of abandoned industrial buildings is proposed so that the aforementioned dynamic evaluation factors can be integrated into the HRA framework. Finally, feasible application solutions and data availability of dynamic factors are discussed, and case studies are carried out to better support DHRA application. The results show that the evaluation results are sensitive to different degrees of dynamic evaluation factors, and DHRA can provide more authentic and reliable evaluation results.