Introduction. The Federal Project “Clean Air” has been implemented in the country since 2019. Its aim is to considerably improve ambient air quality by directive-controlled reduction of emissions of ‘priority pollutants’ – chemicals that persist in ambient air in levels higher than the valid safe standards and/or make their contribution to population health risks.

The aim of this study. To suggest an algorithm for substantiating, verifying and correcting lists of priority pollutants and objects for which emission quotas are to be set considering all accumulated experience in the Project implementation. The ultimate goal is to achieve effective management of ambient air quality and population health risks.

Materials and methods. The results of aggregated calculations per cities included in the Project, lists of priority pollutants and objects for which emission quotas are to be set, health risk assessment results, data obtained by instrumental measurements of ambient air quality at social and hygienic monitoring posts.

Results. The suggested algorithm of actions aimed at selecting and creating more precise lists of pollutants with established quotas and their emission sources in areas covered by the Federal Project includes verification of priority pollutant lists with instrumental monitoring data, mandatory establishment of causes and sources of considerable discrepancies between “Clean Air” calculated and field data, identification and parameterization of unaccounted emission sources. Our suggestion is that a list of objects for which emission quotas are to be set should include economic entities making a contribution to violation of safe standards and creating unacceptable health risks. They should be included regardless of their category, total emission mass and other secondary characteristics that do not have a direct correlation with an actual impact on the environment and human health.

Limitations. The limitations of the study are related to the analyzed data set: only cities included in the quota experiment are included.

Conclusion. The algorithm involves a shift from directive-established reduction in emissions from all economic entities with priority pollutants in their emissions to a targeted calculated reduction adequate to a risk level and a contribution made by a given economic entity to this risk. Effectiveness of the Project activities should be assessed per residual risk levels (which should be verified with monitoring data, epidemiological and/or specialized profound biomedical examinations). Such assessments should become a mandatory element in the system for setting emission quotas. We have developed recommendations to improve the regulatory base for setting emission quotas, which assign greater significance to population health indicators within the whole system for managing ambient air quality.

Compliance with ethical standards. This study did not require a biomedical ethics committee opinion (the study was performed on publicly available official statistical data).

Contribution: Zaitseva N.V. – concept and design of the study, editing, approval of the final version of the article; May I.V. – editing, writing the text, approval of the final version of the article. All authors are responsible for the integrity of all parts of the manuscript and approval of the manuscript final version.

Conflict of interest. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding. The study had no sponsorship.

Received: July 4, 2025 / Revised: July 28, 2025 / Accepted: August 6, 2025 / Published: September 25, 2025