Nepal Reservoir Transparency

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: Nepal has virtually one significant storage reservoir: Kulekhani (85.3 Mm³, owned by NEA). No publicly accessible online portal publishes Kulekhani's current storage volume or water level in real time. The National Energy Information System (neis.gov.np/power-plant-storage) has a power-plant-storage page that may reference Kulekhani data but the domain has a broken TLS certificate and is largely inaccessible. News outlets (Kathmandu Post, September 2025) cite water level readings from Kulekhani-I plant management staff directly, not from a public dashboard. DHM's Real Time Stream Flow and River Watch portals publish river gauge water levels nationwide but these are flood-monitoring stations, not reservoir storage data. NEA annual Generation Reports include aggregate energy production by plant but do not publish time-series reservoir storage volumes. There is effectively no operational public data portal for Nepal's reservoir storage.

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: DHM's river-watch and realtime-stream pages are publicly accessible without login, displaying HTML tables of water levels across hundreds of river gauge stations. However, there is no documented REST API, no bulk download, and no machine-readable format (CSV/JSON) offered for these data. Historical hydrological data from DHM requires a formal written request with stated purpose, institutional affiliation, and payment of fees — it is not freely downloadable. NEIS has a broken TLS certificate preventing access. NEA publishes annual PDF reports. No open-data API exists for Nepal reservoir storage. The DHM homepage exposes an internal image API endpoint (dhm.gov.np/mfd/api/) but this is not a public data API. The technical access barrier for reservoir-specific data is very high.

v1.3.0 capacity-weighted: coverage = round(100 × covered_capacity_hm³ / total_national_capacity_hm³). Nepal's total reservoir capacity above 10 hm³ is approximately 85 Mm³, consisting of Kulekhani (85.3 Mm³, operated by NEA, commissioned 1982) — the country's only reservoir-type hydropower scheme. Nepal's developed hydropower fleet of 2,500+ MW is overwhelmingly run-of-river (Upper Tamakoshi, Trishuli, Modi Khola, Chilime) with no meaningful storage. NEA publishes no systematic Kulekhani storage data; NEIS (neis.gov.np/power-plant-storage) has a broken TLS certificate; figures appear only in ad-hoc media articles. Covered capacity = 0 Mm³. Coverage = round(100 × 0 / 85) = 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: DHM has operated hydrometric stations since the 1960s–1970s and maintains an Oracle database of water level and discharge records. Academic studies (e.g., 1986–2015 streamflow analyses using 27 DHM stations) confirm that multi-decade archives exist. However, these records are accessible only through a formal paid data-request procedure, not via free online download. The DHM publication page lists recent flood reports and administrative documents in Nepali, not machine-readable hydrological yearbooks. ICIMOD's regional data repository hosts discharge records for 14 Nepali stations but links appear broken. For Kulekhani specifically, NEA internal records date to 1982 (dam completion) but no machine-readable historical storage time-series is publicly available online.

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: DHM's River Watch and Real Time Stream Flow pages display current-condition water levels at river gauging stations, updated in near-real-time (15-minute telemetry at automated stations). This is commendable for flood early warning. However, these updates cover river gauges, not reservoir storage. For Kulekhani storage data, no scheduled public update cycle exists — the only externally visible data points appear in media articles and come from plant management staff on an ad-hoc basis. NEA annual Generation Reports are published annually with a significant lag (the FY2080 BS report is the latest visible). The score reflects the contrast between DHM's frequent river-level updates and the near-absence of any reservoir storage update mechanism.

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: DHM publishes general information about its station network (337 precipitation stations, 154 hydrometric stations) and describes the use of automated telemetry providing 15-minute water level readings. Academic papers co-authored with DHM staff (available on ResearchGate and NepJOL) describe flow rating curves, velocity-area methods, and the transition from manual to automated gauging. The WMO-standard approach to discharge measurement in Nepal's turbulent Himalayan streams is documented in peer-reviewed literature. However, DHM does not publish a formal, standalone, publicly accessible methodology document covering data quality control, validation procedures, or instrument calibration standards on its website. For Kulekhani specifically, the measurement methodology for reservoir level-to-storage conversion is not publicly documented by NEA.

The DHM website (dhm.gov.np) is officially bilingual, offering full English and Nepali versions. The English interface covers river-watch data, real-time stream flow, weather forecasts, and the data request form. NEA publishes annual reports in English. WECS and NEIS also use English in their policy documentation. Nepal's government extensively uses English in its technical and international-facing communications, and the country has a well-educated English-speaking technical community. The score is capped below 70 because the actual reservoir storage data, when visible at all (in media), is sometimes in Nepali-language outlets, and key portals like NEIS have accessibility issues.