Prof. Rehan Sadiq
Dr. Rehan Sadiq is a world-leading researcher in asset management of water supply systems, environmental risk analysis, and lifecycle assessment of the built environment. Dr. Sadiq is a Provost & Vice-president Academic, Professor of Civil Engineering, and Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. He authored 750 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles, book chapters and technical reports. For the past 3 years, he has been consistently included among the top 2% of scientists in the environmental science and engineering category. Dr. Sadiq is an elected fellow of 5 major engineering societies and associations in Canada.
Balancing Indoor Environment and Operational Strategies in Aquatic Centers: Trade-Offs Through the Water-Health-Energy Nexus Abstract
Swimming is one of the most popular leisure and sports activities around the world. Indoor swimming pools (ISPs) are more common as they offer year-round services. ISPs have complex dynamics where maintaining a comfortable environment requires a trade-off between energy use, thermal comfort, and desirable air and water quality. A critical concern in ISPs is the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs), for which the current literature offers limited data. Managing water and air quality in ISPs requires understanding of the complex relationships among operational factors such as optimal air ventilation, water temperature, residual disinfectant levels, energy use, etc. A collaborative was in ongoing, which brings academia, industry, and municipalities together to develop best management practices for ISPs. The motivation is to minimize environmental impacts and reduce overall operational costs while maintaining high water and air quality standards by understanding the water-health-energy nexus (WHEN). This research has several phases, i.e., (1) monitor and collect data related to water and air quality in (ISPs), (2) Develop predictive models to understand the fate and transport of water and air quality parameters, (3) Investigate the energy and air quality performance of the selected facilities through continuous monitoring under different background settings, (4) assess and optimize water and air quality, life cycle costs, and environmental impacts of ISP operations in estimating the feasibility of reaching net-zero status, and (5) develop operational strategies for healthy, economically feasible, and sustainable pool management. These objectives will help to develop an 'ePool' dashboard interface, which will monitor pool conditions in real time for operators. We anticipate that ‘ePool’ will assist ISP facility managers in developing trade-offs between indoor pool environment and promoting sustainable operations.