Avinyan: turning Yerevan into a forest won’t solve pollution

PanARMENIAN.Net - Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan has addressed the capital’s air pollution issue, emphasizing a shift in focus toward acquiring analytical data and basing policy actions on those findings.

“In conversations with people, I’ve realized there’s an intuitive belief that if Yerevan becomes a forest, the problem will go away. But that’s simply not true,” he stated, as reported by Radar Armenia.

As an example, he cited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina: “It’s essentially a forest first, then a city, yet its pollution indicators are shockingly high. Urban greening there hasn’t significantly improved conditions,” he said.

Avinyan stressed the importance of predictive modeling to guide the city’s environmental policies.

“In particular, we’ll be able to forecast the inversion layer. This means that at a certain altitude, pollution indicators worsen, and when that layer descends over the Ararat Valley—affecting Yerevan, Artashat, Vedi, Pokr Vedi, and areas within Turkey—we face similar issues,” the mayor explained.

Such forecasts, he said, would allow authorities to respond in time and implement necessary measures to improve air quality.

According to Armenia’s Hydrometeorology and Monitoring Center, atmospheric air quality data for Yerevan from December 26–29, 2025, and January 3–5, 2026, show that dust concentrations in some areas exceeded the permissible limits.