Tehran Air Quality Monitoring Network & Pollution Emergency Closures

Tehran measures its air with a real ground network, not a satellite model: 37 monitoring stations — 24 run by Tehran Municipality's Air Quality Control Company (AQCC) and 13 by Iran's Department of Environment — publish hourly PM2.5, PM10, NO2, SO2, CO and O3 readings. A peer-reviewed 2024 analysis of the 2019–2022 station data put the 2022 annual PM2.5 average at 36.11 µg/m³, more than double the WHO guideline. The readings have consequences, but only through people: when smog spiked in November–December 2025, authorities closed schools and universities in the capital and banned trucks — decisions taken in emergency sessions, with no automatic trigger. The levers behind the smog — winter mazut burning at power plants, subsidised fuel, an ageing vehicle fleet — sit with the national government, and official statistics attribute tens of thousands of deaths a year across Iran to unsafe air.