Nix, Emily; (2018) Housing, health and energy use in low-income settings: employing building science to evaluate housing improvements in Delhi, India. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Good housing design has been shown to yield both health gains and meet long-term climate change mitigation objectives. To date however, in-depth studies focusing on housing, health and energy in developing contexts are scarce. The work described in this thesis aimed to understand how housing interventions could achieve health and energy efficiency goals simultaneously in a low-income context, through using building science to investigate the residential sector of Delhi. A multiphase mixed methods approach was employed to assess the current housing conditions in Delhi and identify potential interventions. These learnings have also led to suggestions of new perspectives for further work. Delhi’s housing stock was stratified into four largely homogeneous settlement types; planned, unauthorised, urban villages and JJ clusters, to assess energy consumption and health risks. Energy consumption was found to be two to three times higher in planned settlements and health risks were estimated greatest in JJ cluster dwellings, with exposure to heat and particulate matter found to be prime hazards. Quantification of indoor conditions using building simulation modelling found that planned and JJ clusters archetypes experienced high levels of annual PM2.5 exposure and were thermally uncomfortable in summer and monsoon seasons. Monitoring of indoor temperatures during key seasonal periods supported these findings, with dwellings found incapable of providing safe conditions. The most effective intervention, when considering objectives for energy use, cost, and health, was a combination of building fabric changes with evaporative cooling and cooking ventilation strategies. For the JJ clusters, a total retrofit was recommended to significantly improve conditions. However, exposure to PM2.5 indoors cannot be sizeably reduced without decreasing the outdoor levels. On evaluation of the study framework, it was recognised that the generalisability of the results across Delhi is limited by the informal and unregulated housing sector. It was proposed that building science should be immersed in a participatory approach that not only defines but also works within policy and practice to achieve adequate housing.

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