H1 2026 Evaluation
Bolivia Reservoir Transparency
F20Opaque — Ranked #101 out of 167 countries
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Primary source evaluated
Dimension breakdown
Data Availability
20% of total score
No public dashboard showing current reservoir storage volumes exists for Bolivia's major reservoirs (Corani, San Jacinto, Angostura, Cabra Cancha). SENAMHI publishes daily hydrological bulletins and biweekly Lake Titicaca technical bulletins (PDF) reporting lake levels — not reservoir storage volumes. The MMAyA's SIMHEB platform was designed to publish real-time reservoir data but its public URL is undocumented and the system was still undergoing a strengthening consultancy in 2024. MMAyA's SIARH portal offers a static historical water balance (1980–2020) as a downloadable dataset but this is a climatological product, not operational reservoir monitoring. ENDE Corani installed a Smarty River sensor on the Juntas river but does not publish storage levels publicly. During the 2016 La Paz water crisis the absence of publicly accessible SEMAPA reservoir data was conspicuous. Score reflects Titicaca level bulletins (partial credit) and SIARH historical document repository.
Technical Accessibility
15% of total score
No REST API or programmatic data access exists for Bolivian reservoir data. SENAMHI's INADHI system is advertised on its website but no API documentation is published. Historical hydrometeorological data from SENAMHI requires a formal certification request (in-person or via form), costs 150 Bolivianos for non-students, and is governed by Administrative Resolution 05/2025 — a bureaucratic barrier incompatible with open data principles. All operational bulletins are PDF-only. The SIARH portal presents data through web pages and downloadable PDFs; some modules (SISMO, SISPM) appear login-gated. The MMAyA's Surface Water Balance database (1980–2016/2020) is downloadable but as a static bulk file, not queryable by reservoir. No open data standard (CSV, JSON, GeoJSON) has been identified for real-time reservoir data. datos.gob.bo hosts agua-tagged datasets but none contain reservoir storage time series.
Coverage
30% of total score
v1.3.0 capacity-weighted, conservative: coverage = round(100 × covered_capacity_hm³ / total_national_capacity_hm³). Bolivia's total reservoir capacity above 10 hm³ is approximately 750 Mm³ across ~15-25 qualifying reservoirs, including Corani (~142-150 Mm³), San Jacinto, Angostura, Misicuni, Cabra Cancha, plus medium hydropower and irrigation reservoirs. SENAMHI biweekly Lake Titicaca bulletins provide a partial transboundary proxy (Titicaca level — not a Bolivian reservoir per se); intermittent COE/CNDC mentions of Corani inflows in operational reports add marginal visibility. Smaller reservoirs (San Jacinto, Angostura, Misicuni, Cabra Cancha and others) are entirely absent from public reporting. Conservatively, capacity-weighted covered storage ≈ 60 Mm³ of effective signal. Coverage = round(100 × 60 / 750) = 8. SIMHEB's public interface remained unverified as of mid-2026.
Historical Depth
13% of total score
The longest publicly accessible hydrological time series in Bolivia is the Lake Titicaca level record. SENAMHI's technical bulletins reference measurements back to 1974 at the Huatajata station, and the Muelle Enafer record (managed jointly with Peru's SENAMHI) extends to September 1914 — over 110 years. The MMAyA Surface Water Balance provides gridded runoff data 1980–2020 (40 years), downloadable from SIARH/VIBH. SIMHEB claims >30 years of historical records for instrumented reservoirs. However, none of these constitute a machine-readable, per-reservoir storage volume time series accessible without formal request. INE publishes annual river flow/level statistics through 2023 (annual cadence). The score reflects the Titicaca record and SIARH balance as partial credit; reservoir-specific storage history remains effectively inaccessible publicly.
Update Frequency
10% of total score
SENAMHI publishes daily hydrological level bulletins (river gauges) and weekly/biweekly Lake Titicaca technical bulletins — a genuinely high-frequency product. However, these do not report reservoir storage. For the reservoirs that matter operationally (Corani hydropower system, La Paz drinking water supply), no regular public reporting cadence has been identified. The 2016 La Paz water crisis demonstrated that reservoir status was not being published proactively. INE's water resources statistics are annual with roughly a two-year lag. SIMHEB's real-time data, if publicly accessible, would represent a step change — but as of mid-2026 its public interface is not confirmed. Score awards partial credit for the daily SENAMHI bulletin infrastructure (which demonstrates institutional capacity) while penalising the near-zero frequency for actual reservoir storage publication.
Methodological Transparency
8% of total score
Some methodological documentation is publicly accessible. The 2010 National Dam Inventory (MMAyA/GTZ via BIVICA) documents measurement standards and dam typologies. MMAyA's Surface Water Balance reports describe hydrological modelling methodology. SENAMHI's bulletins reference WMO-standard limnimetric stations. The INCLAM/MMAyA iAgua articles describe SIMHEB's sensor network design. However, no unified, machine-readable methodology document describes how individual reservoir storage volumes are derived from sensor readings, what calibration procedures apply, or how data gaps are handled. The gap between described intentions (SIMHEB documentation) and verified published practice is large. SENAMHI's data certification procedure (formal request) implies the underlying station methodology exists but is not proactively published. Partial credit for the dam inventory and water balance technical reports.
Language and Usability
5% of total score
All official Bolivian water data portals (SENAMHI, MMAyA/SIARH, datos.gob.bo, INE) operate exclusively in Spanish. No English interface, English metadata, or English API documentation exists for any reservoir data product. Lake Titicaca level data is cited in international English-language publications (journalism, academic papers) but the primary source itself is Spanish-only. The GEM Wiki and hydropower.org carry English profiles of Corani HPP based on secondary sources, not official Bolivian government English publication. Minimal credit for the fact that the 2010 dam inventory was a bilingual Spanish/German GTZ cooperation document, and some MMAyA technical reports use internationally recognisable units.
Evaluator notes
Bolivia occupies a difficult middle ground: it has genuine institutional capacity (SENAMHI's daily bulletin network, the SIARH/SIMHEB infrastructure investment, the 2010 dam inventory) but almost none of that capacity translates into publicly accessible, machine-readable reservoir storage data. The flagship public product — SENAMHI's daily hydrological bulletins and the biweekly Lake Titicaca bulletin — covers river levels and lake levels, not the operational storage volumes of managed reservoirs like Corani (142–150 Mm³), San Jacinto, Angostura, or the La Paz drinking-water supply system. The 2016 urban water crisis, which left over 400,000 La Paz residents without water for weeks, exposed this gap starkly: SEMAPA reservoir levels were not being published in any machine-readable form, making independent early-warning analysis impossible. The MMAyA's SIMHEB platform, developed with Spanish cooperation (INCLAM/AECID), represents the most credible attempt to fill this gap. It claims real-time sensor data from instrumented dams and over 30 years of historical records integrated with the SIARH platform. A 2024 consultancy was contracted to strengthen the system and incorporate additional monitoring networks. However, as of mid-2026, SIMHEB's public-facing URL is not documented in official communications, its data is not demonstrably accessible without institutional credentials, and the number of reservoirs with active sensors versus the 287 in the national inventory is unquantified. The gap between the system's stated ambitions and verified public access is the central finding of this evaluation. Bolivia scores in the lower quarter of the RTI 2026 index. The primary barriers are the absence of a documented public API or open data endpoint, PDF-only publication format for most hydrological products, the formal certification requirement (with fee) for raw station data, and the lack of any Spanish let alone English reservoir storage dashboard. The MMAyA Surface Water Balance (1980–2020, downloadable from SIARH/VIBH) is a genuine historical asset that lifts the historical_depth score above the floor, and SENAMHI's daily bulletin cadence demonstrates operational discipline — but these products are proxies for reservoir state, not direct storage reporting.
Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0