Tbilisi Air Quality Monitoring: Hourly Readings and a Duty to Plan
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17 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.
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Tbilisi measures its air every hour, and the law turns a breach into a duty to plan. What follows on a polluted day is another matter: the portal still labels its own readings not verified.
what does this mean?
The strongest source is an independent non-academic evaluation: an audit office, a government or EU review, or an NGO. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,222 documented projects · 🏙️ 5 more in Tbilisi · 🌫️ Air quality guide · 🌱 Environment projects
Georgia's National Environmental Agency measures Tbilisi's air around the clock. Since 2016 automatic stations have replaced the old non-automatic ones in the capital, and the agency now runs five of them, on Tsereteli, Kazbegi, Aghmashenebeli and Marshal Gelovani avenues and in Varketili 3, alongside passive samplers placed four times a year. Hourly readings appear on the national portal air.gov.ge with a ten-minute delay. Since a 2020 amendment to the Law on Ambient Air Protection, levels above a legal limit oblige the environment ministry to draw up an air quality management plan with the municipalities concerned, and the risk of crossing an alert threshold obliges a short-term action plan. The counterweight sits on the portal itself: it labels the station readings as not verified, and an independent assessment in 2023 found annual reports published only up to 2017.
📊 Impact
In September 2024 the government adopted a 2024–2026 air quality management plan for the Tbilisi agglomeration, developed with support from the European Union and Tbilisi City Hall. The readings it has to answer remain high: in 2025 the annual average of nitrogen dioxide exceeded the legal limit at 12 monitoring points in Tbilisi, and the Tsereteli Avenue station recorded 26 daily PM10 exceedances between January and May 2026, 13 of them, the agency says, caused by weather patterns and desert dust. Enforcement before the plan was thin: the Public Defender reported in 2019 that Tbilisi City Hall had identified no cases of air pollution from construction and imposed no sanctions for it since 2015.
🎓 Lesson
Tbilisi shows the rung a monitoring network reaches when the law attaches a duty to plan rather than a duty to act. Georgia's 2020 amendment gives exceedances a legal consequence, but both consequences are plans that the government approves, so neither is an automatic response on a polluted day. Oversight bodies have found the response weaker than the measurement: by a civil-society brief's account, the State Audit Office concluded in 2018 that the measures against transport pollution in Tbilisi in 2016–2017 did not address the country's challenges, and the Public Defender found no construction-dust sanctions. A plan also needs numbers it can be held to, and the 2023 assessment recommended replacing years of unverified historical data with verified data.
Sources
Show 3 more sourcesShow fewer
📅 How old is the evidence?
Two clocks, kept apart: when this entry’s sources were published, and what has happened to its record in the atlas. Documented span: since 2016. 6 of 8 sources carry a publication date, from June 2018 to 15 June 2026.
When the sources were published
- Open Society Georgia Foundation · ngoOpen Society Georgia Foundation — Ambient Air Pollution in Georgia: Challenges of European Integration (policy brief)
- Public Defender (Ombudsman) of Georgia · oversight bodyPublic Defender of Georgia — Public Defender Responds to Tbilisi Municipality's Statement
- Legislative Herald of Georgia (Matsne) · national governmentLegislative Herald of Georgia — Amendment to the Law on Ambient Air Protection (N5948)
- Arnika · ngoArnika — Assessment of the state air quality monitoring in Georgia (J. Brzezina)
- Georgia Today · pressGeorgia Today — Government approves 2024-2026 air quality management plan for Tbilisi
- DFWatch · pressDFWatch — Which Tbilisi district has the most polluted air? · updated 16 June 2026
Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 17 claims with their sources · the forensic record
Evidence file · public beta 17 addressable claims, 8 source dossiers, one permanent baseline. The file is unreviewed — an AI-assisted structural migration, not a human or expert endorsement. Every revision keeps a permanent copy under revision history.
Inspect the claims, one by one — verbatim text, sources and caveats for all 17
The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.
clm-0aafa31be893def3
descriptive
Georgia's National Environmental Agency measures Tbilisi's air around the clock
Sources carrying this claim
clm-fdf25133330cf556
quantitative
Since 2016 automatic stations have replaced the old non-automatic ones in the capital
Sources carrying this claim
clm-edbb5a386badbe1c
quantitative
the agency now runs five of them, on Tsereteli, Kazbegi, Aghmashenebeli and Marshal Gelovani avenues and in Varketili 3
Sources carrying this claim
clm-5bcd6baa59853ae7
descriptive
alongside passive samplers placed four times a year
Sources carrying this claim
clm-1b9e6ee3026951bd
descriptive
Hourly readings appear on the national portal air.gov.ge with a ten-minute delay
Sources carrying this claim
clm-96670887348c1d99
quantitative
Since a 2020 amendment to the Law on Ambient Air Protection, levels above a legal limit oblige the environment ministry to draw up an air quality management plan with the municipalities concerned
Sources carrying this claim
clm-bd3dd757d0164fad
descriptive
the risk of crossing an alert threshold obliges a short-term action plan
Sources carrying this claim
clm-7f43ef81dcce27ff
descriptive
it labels the station readings as not verified
Sources carrying this claim
clm-2c503f6c1c25e992
quantitative
an independent assessment in 2023 found annual reports published only up to 2017
Sources carrying this claim
clm-443a6192849c3ffa
quantitative
In September 2024 the government adopted a 2024–2026 air quality management plan for the Tbilisi agglomeration, developed with support from the European Union and Tbilisi City Hall
Sources carrying this claim
clm-552d5513755428ec
quantitative
in 2025 the annual average of nitrogen dioxide exceeded the legal limit at 12 monitoring points in Tbilisi
Sources carrying this claim
clm-aba7d45105d46b8e
quantitative
the Tsereteli Avenue station recorded 26 daily PM10 exceedances between January and May 2026, 13 of them, the agency says, caused by weather patterns and desert dust
Sources carrying this claim
clm-a5a43545b2240f11
quantitative
the Public Defender reported in 2019 that Tbilisi City Hall had identified no cases of air pollution from construction and imposed no sanctions for it since 2015
Sources carrying this claim
clm-9ea42493f852f757
descriptive
both consequences are plans that the government approves
Sources carrying this claim
clm-b44cef1f1066c0bb
quantitative
by a civil-society brief's account, the State Audit Office concluded in 2018 that the measures against transport pollution in Tbilisi in 2016–2017 did not address the country's challenges
Sources carrying this claim
clm-ec85d7a315a895eb
descriptive
the Public Defender found no construction-dust sanctions
Sources carrying this claim
clm-194004c6ec0e419b
quantitative
the 2023 assessment recommended replacing years of unverified historical data with verified data
Sources carrying this claim
Forensic record — source dossiers, gaps, hashes and the exact revision this page renders
This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.
Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.
sha256:cfa3d2442208dcfa3bac6bece03c03f9c2a81352b2a72b7980b7ebfe5caa3886
- 17
- of 17 claims mapped
- 8
- source dossiers
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- publication dates recorded
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- archives linked
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- exact locators
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- content captures hashed
Governance facts carried by the record
- Operator
- National Environmental Agency (LEPL of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia), which runs the stations and the air.gov.ge portal; the Tbilisi agglomeration management plan is a government decision developed with Tbilisi City Hall
- Actor types
- national-government, city-government
- Funding model
- Not recorded
- Funding description
- Not recorded
- Cost
- Not recorded
- Ownership
- Not recorded
- Decision rights
- Not recorded
- Exit conditions
- Not recorded
8 source dossiers
National Environmental Agency — Monitoring Network (air.gov.ge)
- Stable source ID
src-681681048b00a06f- Publisher
- Name not classified · air.gov.ge
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The agency's description of its network: automatic stations replaced non-automatic ones in Tbilisi from 2016, further stations were added in Tbilisi and Rustavi in 2019 and in eight cities through 2023, automatic stations measure 24 hours a day, and passive sampling has run four times a year since 2015.
National Environmental Agency — Air Quality Index (air.gov.ge)
- Stable source ID
src-b2e5ce1cd70a42c6- Publisher
- Name not classified · air.gov.ge
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The portal's explanation of its index: hourly data is displayed with a ten-minute delay, data from the automatic stations is not verified, and verified data is published in the reports.
- Claims linked
DFWatch — Which Tbilisi district has the most polluted air?
- Stable source ID
src-e1741d99c733995c- Publisher
- Name not classified · dfwatch.net
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2026-06-15
- Updated
- 2026-06-16
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Report on National Environment Agency data: five automatic stations in Tbilisi (Tsereteli, Kazbegi, Varketili 3, Aghmashenebeli, Marshal Gelovani); Tsereteli Avenue exceeded the 24-hour PM10 limit 26 times from January to May 2026, 13 of them attributed by the agency to weather patterns and desert dust; the annual average of nitrogen dioxide exceeded the legal limit at 12 monitoring points in Tbilisi in 2025.
Legislative Herald of Georgia — Amendment to the Law on Ambient Air Protection (N5948)
- Stable source ID
src-be1990b82f42fd57- Publisher
- Name not classified · matsne.gov.ge
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2020-05-22
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The amending law adds Article 44¹ (an air quality management plan whenever levels in a zone or agglomeration exceed limit values) and Article 44² (a short-term action plan when there is a risk of exceeding an alert threshold, approved by the government on the ministry's submission).
Georgia Today — Government approves 2024-2026 air quality management plan for Tbilisi
- Stable source ID
src-f927b608da5840b7- Publisher
- Name not classified · georgiatoday.ge
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2024-09-16
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
News report that the government adopted the revised 2024–2026 air quality management plan for the Tbilisi agglomeration, developed with support from the European Union and Tbilisi City Hall.
- Claims linked
Arnika — Assessment of the state air quality monitoring in Georgia (J. Brzezina)
- Stable source ID
src-d69656b411ec1ce0- Publisher
- Name not classified · arnika.org
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Assessment by a Czech air-quality specialist for the NGO Arnika: four automated stations in Tbilisi among seven in the country, monitoring in a 24/7 regime, threshold values in line with the EU; as of May 2023 annual reports were available only up to 2017, and all historical data is labelled 'not verified data'. Recommends proper validation.
- Claims linked
Public Defender of Georgia — Public Defender Responds to Tbilisi Municipality's Statement
- Stable source ID
src-fa1018c37de758ba- Publisher
- Name not classified · ombudsman.ge
- Type / language
- web-page · language not classified
- Published
- 2019-02-27
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
The Public Defender defends its special report on air pollution against City Hall's criticism; it states that Tbilisi City Hall had not identified cases of air pollution caused by construction and had imposed no sanctions for it since 2015.
- Claims linked
Open Society Georgia Foundation — Ambient Air Pollution in Georgia: Challenges of European Integration (policy brief)
- Stable source ID
src-ff422689411c0dd9- Publisher
- Name not classified · csf.ge
- Type / language
- pdf · language not classified
- Published
- Not recorded
- Updated
- Not recorded
- Source last checked
- No source-level check date
- Record last verified
- 2026-11-04
- Dossier created
- 2026-11-04
- Retrieved copy
- No local capture recorded
- Archive
- No archived copy linked
- Content hash
- No captured content hash
- Locator
- Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Open the recorded source note
Civil-society policy brief (Green Alternative for the Open Society Georgia Foundation). It reports the State Audit Office's 2018 finding that measures against transport air pollution in Tbilisi in 2016–2017 did not address the country's challenges.
- Claims linked
Known limits of this file
- Publisher names and source languages have not yet been classified; domains are recorded without guessing.
- Existing source notes are descriptive locators, not page- or paragraph-exact citations.
- A missing archive, publication date or content hash is shown as null rather than inferred.
- The project-level evidence grade ranks the strongest source in the entry; it is not a truth score for every claim.
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📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Tbilisi Air Quality Monitoring: Hourly Readings and a Duty to Plan” — Tbilisi, Georgia. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/tbilisi-air-quality-monitoring/ (last verified 2026-11-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.
