Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
chapter thirteen
Regulatory and
nonregulatory initiatives
I. Introduction
Indoor environments are subject to a wide variety of contamination prob-
lems associated with natural or anthropogenic sources that may adversely
affect the health and well-being of building occupants. Consequently, some
form of individual or collective efforts is needed to identify, prevent, and in
many cases mitigate, indoor air quality (IAQ) and other indoor environment
(IE) problems.
In the U.S. and other developed countries in western Europe and Asia,
identification of individual environmental problems such as those involving
air, water, and waste has been followed by a pattern of initial slowly evolving
government involvement, with subsequent significant regulatory require-
ments. Government action to solve or attempt to solve environmental prob-
lems through regulations or some type of public policy initiatives has been
very common in the past three decades.
With the exception of some specific and limited cases, the traditional
model of governmental regulatory involvement in controlling/mitigating
environmental problems cannot easily be applied to indoor environments.
Ambient (outdoor) air pollution control focuses on the free-flowing air of
the atmosphere that becomes contaminated from a variety of stationary and
mobile sources. Ambient air is not confined to an individual's property. Its
contamination by anthropogenic sources imposes potential risks to humans
and the environment that are involuntary. As such, government regulatory
action is essential.
The history of environmental regulation in North America and other
developed countries has been to use regulation as a tool to reduce exposures
that result in involuntary risks to the public and adversely affect the envi-
