A successful Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) surveillance plan is essential for healthy and safe workplaces;yet it is costly to sample all air pollutants of the entire community. In Hong Kong, a voluntary IAQcertification scheme for workplaces proposes the acceptable concentration levels of nine commonindoor air pollutants, namely carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), respirable suspendedparticulates (RSP), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), formaldehyde (HCHO), total volatile organiccompounds (TVOC), radon (Rn) and airborne bacteria count (ABC).
Until now, there is no widely accepted way to express any index for this purpose and takinginto account the large variety of possible pollutants. Things can be simptied if the aim k tocompare different systems and strategies rather than to give an absolute value of quality.For the study of a pollutant source, the main important point for comparison is the pattern ofits production, whatever this pollutant is. The detailed data for each inhabitant is the curve ofthe number of hours above a pollutant level concentration.
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