H1 2026 Evaluation
Azerbaijan Reservoir Transparency
F1Opaque — Ranked #152 out of 167 countries
weight 30%
weight 20%
weight 15%
weight 13%
weight 10%
weight 8%
weight 5%
Primary source evaluated
State Statistical Committee — Environment in Azerbaijan yearbook
https://www.stat.gov.az/menu/6/statistical_yearbooks/?lang=enDimension breakdown
Data Availability
20% of total score
No public portal publishes current reservoir storage volumes or water levels for any Azerbaijani reservoir. Azerenerji (operator of Mingachevir, Shamkir, Yenikend, Varvara HPPs) does not publish reservoir data on its website. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources (eco.gov.az) provides no hydrological data portal. The State Statistical Committee's annual 'Environment in Azerbaijan' yearbook contains aggregated national water resource statistics (total reservoir capacity: ~21.5 km³, 140 reservoirs) but not current fill levels or time-series storage data. Multiple EU4Environment and UNECE assessments from 2022–2024 explicitly confirm that 'no electronic library or national bank of hydrological data open for everyone' exists and that 'existing electronic bases of hydrometeorological data are open only for official use.' Jeyranbatan reservoir (water supply for Baku) is managed by the Ministry of Emergency Situations with no public data.
Technical Accessibility
15% of total score
No REST API, no open data endpoint, no machine-readable format exists for Azerbaijani reservoir data. The IDDA national open data portal (opendata.az) contains only 3 hydrometeorology datasets — none related to reservoir storage or water levels. The State Statistical Committee yearbook is a large PDF (79 MB for 2025 edition), not suitable for programmatic access. Azerenerji's website blocks automated access (bot-protection). The nascent State Water Resources Agency (ADSEA, established 2023) is developing a GIS-based hydrological database with a 'dedicated portal,' but as of 2026 this system is not publicly accessible. SCADA systems exist at Azersu pump stations but serve only internal operational use.
Coverage
30% of total score
Methodology v1.3.0 (capacity-weighted). Azerbaijan's qualifying national reservoir capacity is approximately 16,000 hm³, dominated by Mingachevir (~15,730 hm³, the largest reservoir in the Caucasus and ~73% of national total) plus Shamkir (~2,680 hm³), Sarsang (~565 hm³, Karabakh), Jeyranbatan (~186 hm³, Baku water supply), Yenikend (~158 hm³), Varvara (~60 hm³) and smaller impoundments on the Kura/Araz cascades. Multiple UNECE/EU4Environment/World Bank assessments confirm no national bank of hydrological data is open to the public; Azerenerji publishes nothing operational and the State Statistical Committee yearbook contains only annual aggregates. Covered capacity is 0 hm³. Coverage = round(100 × 0 / 16,000) = 0.
Historical Depth
13% of total score
Soviet-era hydrological records were collected from the 1950s through the late 1980s but 'many of these records were no longer kept after 1990' and 'even existing data are difficult to access and their quality is partly doubtful' (multiple UNECE/academic sources, 2022–2025). The GRDC includes some river discharge stations in the Kura basin, but these cover discharge, not reservoir storage, and rely on Azerbaijan providing data to an international body rather than publishing nationally. The State Statistical Committee yearbook provides a single aggregate figure per year, not a machine-readable time series. The ADSEA is building a hydrological database by transferring Soviet-era records into digital form, but this archive has not been released publicly as of 2026.
Update Frequency
10% of total score
The only publicly available figures with any regularity are the annual totals in the 'Environment in Azerbaijan' statistical yearbook (annual cadence, published ~12 months after the reference year). No monthly, weekly or real-time reservoir data is published. The 17 automatic hydrological stations installed on Azerbaijani rivers (11 in Karabakh) feed data into a government internal system — no public feed is available. The new National Strategy on Water Resources (October 2024) calls for real-time digital water management, but this has not yet translated into public data publication.
Methodological Transparency
8% of total score
No official document describes how reservoir storage volumes are measured, what instruments are used, what uncertainty estimates apply, or what bathymetric surveys underpin the capacity figures. The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources published a 2002 environmental information law mandating triennial environmental reports, but these reports do not include reservoir monitoring methodology. UNECE assessments note the country lacks accredited laboratory capacity and that monitoring methods do not fully meet requirements of modern research standards. The EU4Environment programme is supporting laboratory accreditation (AZELAB) as a first step, but methodological transparency for reservoir measurement has not been addressed.
Language and Usability
5% of total score
The State Statistical Committee website offers an English-language interface (stat.gov.az?lang=en), and the IDDA open data portal has an English version (opendata.az/en). However, the actual yearbook PDFs are predominantly in Azerbaijani, and no hydrological data of substance is available even in Azerbaijani. English content on eco.gov.az is structurally inaccessible (redirect loops, bot protection). The SDG 6 data portal (sdg6data.org) provides some Azerbaijan metrics in English, but these are high-level aggregates with no reservoir storage data. UNECE and World Bank reports about Azerbaijan are in English but do not publish primary data. The partial English portal infrastructure earns a small score, but the absence of substantive data in any language caps usability severely.
Evaluator notes
Azerbaijan presents one of the weakest reservoir data transparency profiles among countries with significant hydropower infrastructure. Despite hosting Mingachevir — the largest reservoir in the Caucasus at 15.73 km³ (~73% of the national total capacity of 21.5 km³) — and 17 major hydropower plants operated by Azerenerji on the Kura River cascade (Mingachevir, Shamkir, Yenikend, Varvara), no public data source provides current or historical storage volumes for any of these facilities. Multiple independent assessments (EU4Environment 2022–2025, UNECE, World Bank 2024) consistently confirm that Azerbaijan has no national bank of hydrological data open to the public, that inter-agency data exchange remains paper-based, and that existing electronic hydrometeorological databases are restricted to official use only and are fee-based. The structural barriers are significant: post-Soviet data collection collapsed after 1990 with many records lost, Azerenerji operates without any public reporting obligation on reservoir states, and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources eco.gov.az portal is effectively inaccessible online. Positive reforms are underway — the State Water Resources Agency (ADSEA) was created in March 2023, a National Water Strategy was signed in October 2024, 17 automatic hydrological stations were installed on rivers (2022–2024), and ADSEA is digitising Soviet-era records and developing a GIS-based hydrological portal — but none of these initiatives have produced publicly accessible reservoir storage data as of mid-2026. The Araz River basin (shared transboundary system with Iran, Armenia and Turkey) has no joint monitoring publication, reflecting broader governance gaps in the region. Azerbaijan's RTI 2026 composite score is among the lowest in the index, in the range of countries with no functioning open hydrological data infrastructure. The country earns minimal credit only for partial English-language portals (stat.gov.az, opendata.az) that exist structurally but contain no reservoir storage data, and for reporting aggregate water resource statistics to international bodies (SDG 6, UNECE). Meaningful improvement would require Azerenerji to publish reservoir levels alongside hydropower generation data, and ADSEA to launch its planned GIS portal with public access.
Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0