Continuous Air Quality Monitoring at 100 Public Underground Shopping Centers
Replacing Old HVAC Equipment with High-Efficiency Parts and Shortening Filter Replacement Cycles
[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on the 4th that it will invest 1 billion KRW this year to intensively manage indoor air quality in public underground shopping malls. This initiative aims to create a more pleasant environment by increasing the installation of automatic air quality measuring devices and replacing ventilation and air conditioning equipment with high-efficiency devices.
First, the number of automatic air quality measurement points in public underground shopping malls (25 locations) will be increased to 100. A monitoring system will be established to jointly oversee indoor air quality with the Seoul Facilities Corporation. The Facilities Corporation has been measuring air quality in underground shopping malls since 2007 and currently operates 69 automatic simplified measuring devices. With this budget support from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, 31 additional devices will be installed, expanding the measurement coverage to a total of 100 points.
Moreover, when indoor air quality exceeds the standard concentration, an automatic alarm function will activate ventilation and air purification equipment, and it will also be possible to immediately check for fire occurrences in the relevant sections. This allows not only air quality improvement but also ensures the safety of underground shopping mall facilities.
Some aging air conditioning equipment’s blowers, filters, and humidifiers will be replaced with high-efficiency devices to enhance ventilation performance, and in clothing stores where dust is generated in large amounts, the replacement cycle of HEPA filters in air purifiers will be shortened. Additionally, the city plans to analyze big data on air quality collected by automatic measuring devices to verify the effects of indoor air quality improvement before and after facility upgrades and use this data to develop customized improvement plans for each section of the underground shopping malls in the future.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government expects that improving the air quality of public underground shopping malls, which cover a total area of 156,934㎡, will protect the health of merchants and visitors while transforming these spaces into safe shelters for emergency evacuation during sudden heavy rains and heatwaves. The public underground shopping malls in Seoul consist of 25 locations and 2,788 stores, with 600,000 people passing through daily and about 2,700 merchants and management staff staying an average of more than 10 hours per day.
Ha Dong-jun, Director of the Air Policy Division, said, “As real-time management becomes possible through the expansion of automatic measuring devices, we will strive to create a healthy and pleasant environment through meticulous monitoring,” adding, “We will continue to cooperate with the Seoul Facilities Corporation to improve air quality in underground spaces.”
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