H1 2026 Evaluation
Burkina Faso Reservoir Transparency
F34Opaque — Ranked #80 out of 167 countries
weight 30%
weight 20%
weight 15%
weight 13%
weight 10%
weight 8%
weight 5%
Primary source evaluated
Dimension breakdown
Data Availability
20% of total score
DGRE publishes a monthly Bulletin Hydrologique and a 10-day Note Hydrologique Décadaire that include fill rates for major dams (Bagré, Kompienga, Ziga, Loumbila). Data reaches the press — in August 2024, DGRE-sourced figures showed Bagré at 91.72% and Kompienga at 76.78%. However, bulletins are not directly downloadable via stable public URLs; they require navigating an opaque publications section or submitting a formal data request. No public-facing dashboard or portal displays current storage volumes. The military junta (in power since 2022) has tightened control over public data and humanitarian access, further reducing openness.
Technical Accessibility
15% of total score
No REST API or structured data endpoint exists. The DGRE interactive map (dgre.gov.bf/mapviewer) requires admin login. Formal data access is gated behind a request form that requires institutional affiliation, stated purpose, and justification — not open access. Publications when available are PDF only. The eauburkina.com sector portal provides PDFs and zip archives but no machine-readable reservoir data. No SPARQL endpoint, WFS, or equivalent open-data interface was found.
Coverage
30% of total score
v1.3.0 capacity-weighted with conservative estimation applied 2026-05-29. Burkina Faso's total reservoir capacity above 10 hm³ is approximately 5,300 Mm³, distributed across ~18–22 qualifying reservoirs: Kompienga (~2,050 Mm³), Bagré (~1,700 Mm³), Ziga (~200 Mm³), Loumbila (~42 Mm³), Bam (~38 Mm³), plus the long tail of agricultural and water-supply impoundments. DGRE bulletins reach the public for the strategic Bagré and Kompienga during flood season, with intermittent coverage of Ziga and Loumbila — covered capacity ≈ 3,180 Mm³ on a conservative basis. Coverage = round(100 × 3,180 / 5,300) = 60. The conservative downward revision from 72 reflects that DGRE bulletins are not directly downloadable via stable URLs, that publication is concentrated in the flood season with no continuous archive, that the MapViewer requires admin login, and that the long tail of smaller hill dams (~970 inventoried structures, many degraded) receives no individual public reporting.
Historical Depth
13% of total score
Historical data exists in internal DGRE archives and in research datasets — a SONABEL irrigation withdrawal time series for Bagré covers 2000–2018, and the Volta basin pre-water audit contains older records. The 2022 Statistical Yearbook of Water and Sanitation is the most recent publicly accessible multi-year compilation, but it covers sector indicators rather than reservoir-level storage volumes. No machine-readable historical archive of dam levels is publicly accessible. All historical depth is locked in PDFs or internal agency systems.
Update Frequency
10% of total score
The DGRE formally produces a 10-day hydrological note (Note Hydrologique Décadaire) and a monthly Bulletin Hydrologique Mensuel — cadences that would be among the best in sub-Saharan Africa if publicly accessible. In practice, the bulletins reach the public indirectly through press releases and media coverage during flood season, not via a maintained open archive. Out-of-flood-season publication appears inconsistent. No near-real-time or weekly updates are available to the public.
Methodological Transparency
8% of total score
No published methodology for reservoir level measurement was found on the DGRE website or any government portal. A 2022 network optimization report covers hydrometric station design but does not describe dam monitoring protocols specifically. Measurement for large dams (staff gauges at Bagré, Kompienga) follows standard DGIRH/DGRE practice, but no calibration procedures, uncertainty estimates, or data quality flags are published publicly. The eauburkina.com portal lists sector governance reports rather than technical methodology.
Language and Usability
5% of total score
The DGRE website (dgre.gov.bf) officially offers French, English, and Arabic navigation — a notable gesture. However, all hydrological bulletins, statistical yearbooks, dam reports, and downloadable documents are exclusively in French. The English interface routes to the same French-language publications. SONABEL and ONBAH have no English-language presence. For an international researcher seeking reservoir storage data, French fluency is a hard requirement for any substantive engagement.
Evaluator notes
Burkina Faso occupies a critical but opaque position in Sahel water transparency. The DGRE is an institutionally real agency with a functioning monitoring network: it tracks the fill rates of Kompienga, Bagré, Ziga, and Loumbila at 10-day and monthly intervals, and this data demonstrably reaches the public domain during flood seasons via press communications. The August 2024 spillage warnings for Bagré (91.72% full) and Kompienga (76.78%) were sourced directly from DGRE bulletins. This distinguishes Burkina Faso from a true data black hole — the infrastructure and cadence exist. The critical gap is accessibility. The formal data request system, absent public dashboards, PDF-only publications without stable URLs, and a MapViewer that requires admin credentials all place meaningful data well behind institutional barriers. The military junta (in power since January 2022, deepened under Ibrahim Traoré from September 2022) has systematically reduced transparency across government functions: international NGOs face document bottlenecks and access bans, independent media has been suppressed, and there is no indication of movement toward open data on water resources. The government's 2026 dam rehabilitation campaign involving 100 structures across 12 regions signals operational priority for water infrastructure but says nothing about data openness. Burkina Faso's approximately 970 inventoried dams — of which 40% are severely degraded and only 10% in good condition — represent a massive monitoring gap. Only the four largest reservoirs appear in any public reporting. For a Sahel country where 50 million additional cubic meters are being mobilised through emergency dredging campaigns, the absence of a functional, publicly accessible storage monitoring system is a significant water governance deficit that carries real humanitarian risk.
Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0
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