1001 Smart Cities
🇮🇷 Tehran

Tehran Air Quality Monitoring Network & Pollution Emergency Closures

🤖 AI-generated summary · ◆ 13 sourced claims · 🔎 Last verified

This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.

13 sourced claims on this page, none individually verified yet — turn on “Sources in the text” to see each one.

How this atlas is made · What “last verified” means · What “source-checked” means · The full record behind this page

✎ Corrected 4 Oct 2026 4 sources added. What changed →

Tehran's 37 stations log its smog hour by hour. When readings spike, schools close — but whether power plants burn mazut is decided by the national government, not the city.

Outcome🔄 Ongoing
Evidence🔬 Peer-reviewed
what does this mean?The strongest source behind this entry is an independent peer-reviewed or academic study. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →
Run byTehran Air Quality Control Company (Tehran Municipality) with Iran's Department of Environment
Scale🏙️ City-wide

Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,247 documented projects · 🏙️ 1 more in Tehran · 🌫️ Air quality guide · 🌱 Environment projects

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 — record 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 late November 2025, authorities closed schools and universities in the capital and banned trucks, and in January 2026 primary schools went online and cars were restricted by licence plate. Each time, the province's Air Pollution Emergency Working Group decided, weighing the index against the weather forecast — there is no automatic trigger. The levers behind the smog sit largely outside City Hall: whether power plants burn mazut when gas runs short is a national energy decision, and official statistics attribute tens of thousands of deaths a year across Iran to unsafe air.

Live

📊 Impact

A peer-reviewed 2024 analysis of hourly data from all 37 stations (2019–2022) measured a 2022 annual PM2.5 average of 36.11 µg/m³ — more than double the WHO guideline of 15 µg/m³ (Scientific Reports).

🎓 Lesson

Owning the measurement is not owning the levers: the city's network documents the smog with peer-reviewed rigour, but whether power plants burn mazut is a national energy decision — so readings trigger school closures, not source control.

🌱 EnvironmentAir qualitySensors & IoT

Sources

↗ Scientific Reports (Nature) — 'Spatial and temporal patterns of urban air pollution in Tehran' (2024)Published 24 October 2024 archived copyPeer-reviewed analysis of hourly 2019–2022 data from Tehran's 37 stations (24 run by the municipal Air Quality Control Company, 13 by the Department of Environment); reports a 2022 annual PM2.5 mean of 36.11 µg/m³ against the WHO guideline of 15 µg/m³.
↗ aqicn.org — Tehran real-time AQI (World Air Quality Index project)Live index for Tehran fed by named ground stations (Imam Khomeini, Poonak, Pasdaran, Region 19, Shahid Beheshti University); the data provider is Iran's national monitoring system (aqms.doe.ir).
↗ RFE/RL — 'Tehran Suffocates As Air Pollution Reaches Crisis Levels' (1 Dec 2025)Video report: authorities closed schools and banned truck travel as pollution reached dangerous levels; official statistics attribute tens of thousands of deaths across Iran each year to unsafe air.
↗ RFE/RL — 'Tehran Pollution Reaches Alarming Level In Latest Environmental Crisis' (29 Nov 2025)Reports the 29 November 2025 emergency: index of 170–200 in Tehran and surrounding cities, schools and universities closed, truck travel banned, car travel restricted and offices on reduced staff.
↗ bne IntelliNews — 'Iran announces emergency restrictions in Tehran over air pollution' (10 Nov 2025)The provincial governorate imposed 24-hour restrictions but kept schools open; an education source quoted via Mehr explains that the Air Pollution Emergency Working Group decides closures by weighing the index against the weather forecast.
Show 3 more sourcesShow fewer
↗ bne IntelliNews — 'Iran claiming pollution moves Tehran schools online as US builds up military across Middle East' (25 Jan 2026)Citing IRNA: the Emergency Air Pollution Working Group moved primary schools online and closed kindergartens on 26–27 January 2026, imposed an odd-even plate scheme and kept high-emission trucks out of the city; independent readings were hard to obtain because of internet restrictions.
↗ Al Jazeera — 'Tehran shrouded in thick smog as Iran burns dirty fuel amid energy crisis' (24 Nov 2025)Reports that 14 power plants burn mazut whenever natural gas runs short, that the energy minister says this will continue, and that officials put premature deaths from air pollution at nearly 59,000 in the year to March 2025.
↗ RFE/RL — 'Environmental Standards Are Polluted' on Iran's clean-air funding and school threshold (1 May 2023)Describes how budget cuts left the 2017 clean-air rules largely toothless and notes that the interior and education ministries backed lowering the pollution-index threshold that keeps students out of school.

📅 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. 7 of 8 sources carry a publication date, from 1 May 2023 to 25 January 2026.

When the sources were published

  1. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty · pressRFE/RL — 'Environmental Standards Are Polluted' on Iran's clean-air funding and school threshold (1 May 2023)
  2. Springer Nature · researchScientific Reports (Nature) — 'Spatial and temporal patterns of urban air pollution in Tehran' (2024)
  3. bne IntelliNews · pressbne IntelliNews — 'Iran announces emergency restrictions in Tehran over air pollution' (10 Nov 2025)
  4. Al Jazeera · pressAl Jazeera — 'Tehran shrouded in thick smog as Iran burns dirty fuel amid energy crisis' (24 Nov 2025)
  5. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) · pressRFE/RL — 'Tehran Pollution Reaches Alarming Level In Latest Environmental Crisis' (29 Nov 2025)
  6. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) · pressRFE/RL — 'Tehran Suffocates As Air Pollution Reaches Crisis Levels' (1 Dec 2025)
  7. bne IntelliNews · pressbne IntelliNews — 'Iran claiming pollution moves Tehran schools online as US builds up military across Middle East' (25 Jan 2026)

Every source, with links ↑

What happened to this record

  1. Entered the record
  2. 4 sources added
  3. Sources last read

Every revision, permanent →

Show your work What this page rests on and what it can’t tell you · all 13 claims with their sources · the forensic record

Evidence file · public beta 13 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 13

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.

Claim 1 clm-26717247ea6e2722 quantitative
37 monitoring stations — 24 run by Tehran Municipality's Air Quality Control Company (AQCC) and 13 by Iran's Department of Environment
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The peer-reviewed study gives the station count and splits it between the municipal company and the Department of Environment.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Scientific Reports (Nature) — 'Spatial and temporal patterns of urban air pollution in Tehran' (2024)
Claim 3 clm-238965b6c8af7b2a descriptive
Tehran measures its air with a real ground network, not a satellite model
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The live AQI page lists named ground stations in Tehran and credits Iran's national monitoring system as the data provider.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. aqicn.org — Tehran real-time AQI (World Air Quality Index project)
Claim 4 clm-ffce6700e28e7eed quantitative
put the 2022 annual PM2.5 average at 36.11 µg/m³, more than double the WHO guideline
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The paper reports the 2022 annual PM2.5 mean and compares it with the WHO guideline of 15 µg/m³.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Scientific Reports (Nature) — 'Spatial and temporal patterns of urban air pollution in Tehran' (2024)
Claim 5 clm-e6852acb89c84406 quantitative
when smog spiked in late November 2025, authorities closed schools and universities in the capital and banned trucks
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
Both RFE/RL reports describe the late-November 2025 emergency: schools and universities closed and truck travel banned.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. RFE/RL — 'Tehran Pollution Reaches Alarming Level In Latest Environmental Crisis' (29 Nov 2025)
  2. RFE/RL — 'Tehran Suffocates As Air Pollution Reaches Crisis Levels' (1 Dec 2025)
Claim 6 clm-a1ac06bf4d34c6e1 quantitative
in January 2026 primary schools went online and cars were restricted by licence plate
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The report, citing state agency IRNA, describes the 26–27 January 2026 directive: virtual classes for primary schools and an odd-even plate scheme.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. bne IntelliNews — 'Iran claiming pollution moves Tehran schools online as US builds up military across Middle East' (25 Jan 2026)
Claim 7 clm-9a9aad257683d7d1 descriptive
the province's Air Pollution Emergency Working Group decided, weighing the index against the weather forecast — there is no automatic trigger
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
An education source quoted via Mehr says closures follow a combined pattern of index and forecast and are decided by the Air Pollution Emergency Working Group; on 10 November 2025 schools stayed open although the index had reached 152 on some days. The January 2026 directive was likewise issued by the working group after a meteorological warning.
Caveat
Iranian officials have discussed an index threshold that keeps students out of school; in practice the working group weighs the index against the forecast case by case.

Sources carrying this claim

  1. bne IntelliNews — 'Iran announces emergency restrictions in Tehran over air pollution' (10 Nov 2025)
  2. bne IntelliNews — 'Iran claiming pollution moves Tehran schools online as US builds up military across Middle East' (25 Jan 2026)
Claim 8 clm-215a6dfdc4ee4d06 descriptive
whether power plants burn mazut when gas runs short is a national energy decision
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
Al Jazeera reports that power plants burn mazut whenever natural gas runs short and quotes the national energy minister confirming they will keep doing so.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Al Jazeera — 'Tehran shrouded in thick smog as Iran burns dirty fuel amid energy crisis' (24 Nov 2025)
Claim 9 clm-a9c9b2dd97366ec1 descriptive
official statistics attribute tens of thousands of deaths a year across Iran to unsafe air
Published field
snippet · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
RFE/RL cites official statistics on tens of thousands of deaths a year; Al Jazeera gives the officials' figure of nearly 59,000 premature deaths in the year to March 2025.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. RFE/RL — 'Tehran Suffocates As Air Pollution Reaches Crisis Levels' (1 Dec 2025)
  2. Al Jazeera — 'Tehran shrouded in thick smog as Iran burns dirty fuel amid energy crisis' (24 Nov 2025)
Claim 10 clm-dff0e6b4ee02b988 quantitative
measured a 2022 annual PM2.5 average of 36.11 µg/m³ — more than double the WHO guideline of 15 µg/m³
Published field
impact · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The peer-reviewed analysis uses hourly data from all 37 Tehran stations (2019–2022) and reports the 2022 annual PM2.5 mean.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. Scientific Reports (Nature) — 'Spatial and temporal patterns of urban air pollution in Tehran' (2024)
Claim 13 clm-c03a37c68c3ee1ac descriptive
readings trigger school closures, not source control
Published field
lesson · verbatim
Mapping
mapped · no interpretation or interpolation added by this file
What the mapping says
The working group's measures are closures, remote work, sports bans and short traffic restrictions; continuing mazut burning shows the source decisions sit elsewhere.
Caveat
No claim-specific caveat recorded

Sources carrying this claim

  1. bne IntelliNews — 'Iran announces emergency restrictions in Tehran over air pollution' (10 Nov 2025)
  2. bne IntelliNews — 'Iran claiming pollution moves Tehran schools online as US builds up military across Middle East' (25 Jan 2026)
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.

unreviewed Revision 2026-10-04-search-uplift effective 2026-10-04 · created 2026-10-04

Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.

sha256:4858d9664c73cd147f614bf9a4c63a37721d7deed36dbecc30acec6ed56b4194
Revision history → Permanent version link → Machine-readable record → Evidence Constitution →
13
of 13 claims mapped
8
source dossiers
7
publication dates recorded
1
archives linked
0
exact locators
0
content captures hashed

Governance facts carried by the record

Operator
Tehran Air Quality Control Company (Tehran Municipality) with Iran's Department of Environment
Actor types
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

Scientific Reports (Nature) — 'Spatial and temporal patterns of urban air pollution in Tehran' (2024) nature.com · 5 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-8ae6d70ebfbe7418
Publisher
Name not classified · nature.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2024-10-24
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
Open archived copy ↗ · 2025-01-08
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Peer-reviewed analysis of hourly 2019–2022 data from Tehran's 37 stations (24 run by the municipal Air Quality Control Company, 13 by the Department of Environment); reports a 2022 annual PM2.5 mean of 36.11 µg/m³ against the WHO guideline of 15 µg/m³.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
aqicn.org — Tehran real-time AQI (World Air Quality Index project) aqicn.org · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-7b0ea6b8254a3c08
Publisher
Name not classified · aqicn.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
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Live index for Tehran fed by named ground stations (Imam Khomeini, Poonak, Pasdaran, Region 19, Shahid Beheshti University); the data provider is Iran's national monitoring system (aqms.doe.ir).

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
RFE/RL — 'Tehran Suffocates As Air Pollution Reaches Crisis Levels' (1 Dec 2025) rferl.org · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-1e4fdf85df55cd48
Publisher
Name not classified · rferl.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-12-01
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Video report: authorities closed schools and banned truck travel as pollution reached dangerous levels; official statistics attribute tens of thousands of deaths across Iran each year to unsafe air.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
RFE/RL — 'Tehran Pollution Reaches Alarming Level In Latest Environmental Crisis' (29 Nov 2025) rferl.org · 1 linked claim

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-4837b7ce933e751a
Publisher
Name not classified · rferl.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-11-29
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Reports the 29 November 2025 emergency: index of 170–200 in Tehran and surrounding cities, schools and universities closed, truck travel banned, car travel restricted and offices on reduced staff.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
bne IntelliNews — 'Iran announces emergency restrictions in Tehran over air pollution' (10 Nov 2025) intellinews.com · 2 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-982bc424fd961c51
Publisher
Name not classified · intellinews.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-11-10
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

The provincial governorate imposed 24-hour restrictions but kept schools open; an education source quoted via Mehr explains that the Air Pollution Emergency Working Group decides closures by weighing the index against the weather forecast.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
bne IntelliNews — 'Iran claiming pollution moves Tehran schools online as US builds up military across Middle East' (25 Jan 2026) intellinews.com · 3 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-cf3e0e0b87f5f546
Publisher
Name not classified · intellinews.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2026-01-25
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Citing IRNA: the Emergency Air Pollution Working Group moved primary schools online and closed kindergartens on 26–27 January 2026, imposed an odd-even plate scheme and kept high-emission trucks out of the city; independent readings were hard to obtain because of internet restrictions.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Al Jazeera — 'Tehran shrouded in thick smog as Iran burns dirty fuel amid energy crisis' (24 Nov 2025) aljazeera.com · 3 linked claims

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-ddb5b6d27e071e8b
Publisher
Name not classified · aljazeera.com
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2025-11-24
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Reports that 14 power plants burn mazut whenever natural gas runs short, that the energy minister says this will continue, and that officials put premature deaths from air pollution at nearly 59,000 in the year to March 2025.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
RFE/RL — 'Environmental Standards Are Polluted' on Iran's clean-air funding and school threshold (1 May 2023) rferl.org · background

Open original source ↗

Stable source ID
src-905a0e75e1c2a3c5
Publisher
Name not classified · rferl.org
Type / language
web-page · language not classified
Published
2023-05-01
Updated
Not recorded
Source last checked
No source-level check date
Record last verified
2026-10-04
Dossier created
2026-10-04
Retrieved copy
No local capture recorded
Archive
No archived copy linked
Content hash
No captured content hash
Locator
Open the recorded source note

Describes how budget cuts left the 2017 clean-air rules largely toothless and notes that the interior and education ministries backed lowering the pollution-index threshold that keeps students out of school.

Descriptive only — not page/paragraph exact
Claims linked
Background source; no baseline claim points here
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.

Continue exploring

Compare this project

🇮🇳 GRAP: Air Quality Readings as a Legal Trigger · New Delhi Delhi's AQI thresholds carry automatic legal force; Tehran's readings go to emergency sessions that decide closures case by case. 🇹🇭 Bangkok PM2.5 Monitoring & Graduated Response · Bangkok Both cities close schools on bad readings but lack levers over the biggest sources — Bangkok's cross-border haze, Tehran's mazut plants. 🇮🇩 Court-Ordered Air Quality Monitoring · Jakarta Jakarta's court-ordered network also triggers nothing automatically — same rung of the reading-to-consequence ladder as Tehran.

Explore the wider context

📟 A Reading Is Not a Decision📖 Air quality index (AQI)📖 Low-emission zone📖 Urban sensor network
📎 Cite this project

1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Tehran Air Quality Monitoring Network & Pollution Emergency Closures” — Tehran, Iran. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/tehran-air-quality-monitoring/ (last verified 2026-10-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.

The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.

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