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← Reservoir Transparency Index H1 2026

H1 2026 Evaluation

Brunei Reservoir Transparency

F2

Opaque — Ranked #141 out of 167 countries

Coverage0

weight 30%

Data Availability0

weight 20%

Technical Accessibility0

weight 15%

Historical Depth0

weight 13%

Update Frequency0

weight 10%

Methodological Transparency0

weight 8%

Language and Usability40

weight 5%

Primary source evaluated

Department of Water Services, Brunei — Jabatan Air

https://www.water.gov.bn
✗ No API

Dimension breakdown

Data Availability

20% of total score

0

Coverage is 0 (no national reservoirs >10 hm³ with public data). Quality dimensions for the COVERED subset are therefore 0 by definition. Original notes preserved below: Brunei operates two significant water-supply reservoirs: Benutan (45 Mm³ capacity, Tutong river) and Ulu Tutong Golden Jubilee Dam (100 Mm³, commissioned 2017). The Department of Water Services (Jabatan Air) holds operational data from these reservoirs, including daily rainfall and inflow records used in academic studies, but no public portal publishes current or historical reservoir storage levels. Data availability is effectively zero to the public.

Technical Accessibility

15% of total score

0

Coverage is 0 (no national reservoirs >10 hm³ with public data). Quality dimensions for the COVERED subset are therefore 0 by definition. Original notes preserved below: No public data portal, API, or downloadable dataset exists for Brunei reservoir levels. Researchers have obtained data directly from the Department of Water Services and the Brunei Meteorological Department under individual agreements, but there is no systematic public access mechanism.

Coverage

30% of total score

0

Methodology v1.3.0 (capacity-weighted). Brunei has approximately 145 hm³ of qualifying national reservoir capacity: Ulu Tutong Golden Jubilee Dam (~100 hm³, commissioned 2017) plus Benutan (~45 hm³ on the Tutong). The Department of Water Services holds operational data internally — academic studies have obtained 2014–2016 daily rainfall and inflow records under bilateral agreements — but publishes no portal, API or downloadable storage dataset. Covered capacity is 0 hm³. Coverage = round(100 × 0 / 145) = 0.

Historical Depth

13% of total score

0

Coverage is 0 (no national reservoirs >10 hm³ with public data). Quality dimensions for the COVERED subset are therefore 0 by definition. Original notes preserved below: Fragmentary historical data exists within government archives and has been shared with researchers (records from 2014–2016 confirmed in academic publications), but no publicly accessible historical time-series is available. Depth cannot be verified independently.

Update Frequency

10% of total score

0

No public updates of any kind are published. Operational monitoring is conducted internally but not disclosed to the public on any schedule.

Methodological Transparency

8% of total score

0

Coverage is 0 (no national reservoirs >10 hm³ with public data). Quality dimensions for the COVERED subset are therefore 0 by definition. Original notes preserved below: The Water Supply Act (1968) establishes the legal framework for water extraction licensing. Routine water quality testing is conducted but methodology for storage-level measurement is not publicly documented. Some insight into data collection methods appears in academic literature based on researcher-obtained data.

Language and Usability

5% of total score

40

Brunei's official languages are Malay and English, and most government portals including water.gov.bn provide content primarily in Malay. English-language documentation exists in some contexts (Water Supply Act is accessible in English), but the principal water services web presence is not designed for international users.

Evaluator notes

Brunei is an oil-rich micro-state on Borneo with a genuine reservoir infrastructure — the Benutan Dam (45 Mm³) and the much larger Ulu Tutong Golden Jubilee Dam (100 Mm³), completed in 2017, together supply over 195 million litres per day to the Brunei-Muara and Tutong districts via the Department of Water Services. There is no hydropower component; electricity is generated entirely from natural gas. Despite this real reservoir estate, public transparency is essentially nil: no portal publishes storage levels, no API exists, and data access requires institutional agreements with the Water Services Department or Meteorological Department. Academic studies have obtained daily rainfall and inflow records for 2014–2016 from government sources, confirming that data is collected internally, but it is not disclosed. Brunei's RTI score is very low as a result of deliberate opacity rather than structural absence of infrastructure. The country is digitalising its water management (real-time sensor pilots are underway) but none of this has translated into public data access. Brunei is therefore scored differently from the pure structural cases (Barbados, Bahamas, Bahrain): it has reservoirs, it collects data, but it publishes none of it.

Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0

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