H1 2026 Evaluation
Nicaragua Reservoir Transparency
F10Opaque — Ranked #114 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
No systematic public dashboard for current reservoir storage exists. ENEL publishes occasional press articles mentioning Apanás water levels as isolated data points (e.g. a single reading of 956.74 m.s.n.m. in a 2017 news release), but no routine or queryable publication of storage volumes is found. CNDC's website (cndc.org.ni) provides daily energy pre-dispatch figures in MWh but contains no reservoir-level or volumetric data. INETER's Dirección de Hidrología Superficial is mandated to collect hydrometric data, but its web infrastructure has SSL failures and no public reservoir portal is accessible online. The interactive energy-sector map (MEM/ENATREL) names the Apanás and Asturias reservoirs geographically but does not report current fill volumes.
Technical Accessibility
15% of total score
All energy-related data published by CNDC is delivered via interactive HTML pages (graphical queries, single-line diagrams, MEMN Diarios display). No REST API, no bulk download endpoints, no open formats (CSV, JSON, XML) for any hydrological or generation dataset are documented. The CNDC MEMN Diarios page offers a date picker but no export function. ENEL data appears only in HTML news articles. INETER's site returns SSL errors for direct fetches, and its geoportal covers administrative/cartographic layers — not real-time hydrological series. No registration-free machine-readable data stream for reservoir volumes exists.
Coverage
30% of total score
Conservative reading (v1.3.0 capacity-weighted). Nicaragua has four reservoirs: Apanás (440 Mm³, main hydropower reservoir), Asturias/La Virgen (33 Mm³), and two minor irrigation/aquaculture bodies. Even Apanás — by far the dominant storage asset, operated by ENEL and turbined by three plants totalling 117 MW — has no published time-series of storage volume or fill percentage; the only public data point identified is a single 2017 ENEL press article (956.74 m.s.n.m.). Asturias and the remaining reservoirs have no publicly reported volumetric data whatsoever. Conservatively, effective coverage ≈ 8% (a one-off historic press snapshot on Apanás only). Score 8.
Historical Depth
13% of total score
No machine-readable historical series for reservoir storage or water levels is publicly accessible. The only retrievable numeric data point for Apanás found online is a single level reading (956.74 m.s.n.m.) from an ENEL article dated October 2017 — a one-off snapshot embedded in narrative text. ARIAE hosts annual electricity sector statistics for Nicaragua covering 2006–2022 in PDF format, but these report generation (GWh) and capacity (MW) aggregates, not reservoir volumes. INETER publishes hydrological bulletins but their online archive is not accessible via direct fetch, and no reservoir volume series is evidenced in search results.
Update Frequency
10% of total score
No scheduled or regular publication cadence for reservoir data has been identified. CNDC publishes daily energy pre-dispatch summaries (MWh), but these do not include reservoir storage. ENEL reservoir-related news articles appear only sporadically — once every several years — typically tied to extreme events (full reservoir overflow) or infrastructure anniversaries, not routine monitoring. There is no weekly, monthly, or even annual reservoir-state report publicly available from ENEL, INETER, or any other Nicaraguan governmental body.
Methodological Transparency
8% of total score
No methodology documentation for reservoir measurement is published online. ENEL's description of the Larreynaga plant mentions internal SCADA systems for supervisory control and data acquisition, but no technical protocol or calibration standard is publicly shared. INETER's Dirección de Recursos Hídricos states its mandate to operate hydrometric networks but publishes no measurement methodology documents on accessible pages. The Nicaraguan government failed the US State Department's 2024 fiscal transparency minimum standards. Transparency International's 2024–2025 CPI scores Nicaragua 14/100 (rank 175/182), among the most opaque governments globally.
Language and Usability
5% of total score
All institutional websites (ENEL, CNDC, INETER, MARENA, ANA) operate exclusively in Spanish with no English-language portal, translation toggle, or bilingual data product. Even the institutional descriptions of available datasets are Spanish-only. Nicaragua does not participate in the Open Government Partnership and has no international-facing open data portal that aggregates reservoir data in English. The Freedom House 2025 report additionally classifies Nicaragua as 'Not Free' on the internet (downgraded from Partly Free in March 2025 after the government revoked .ni domain registrations of independent outlets), further constraining data accessibility.
Evaluator notes
Nicaragua presents one of the weakest reservoir data transparency profiles in Central America. The state electricity operator ENEL manages the country's three hydroelectric plants (Centro América 50 MW, Carlos Fonseca 50 MW, Larreynaga 17 MW) all drawing from the Apanás reservoir system (440 Mm³ capacity), which contributes roughly 12–13% of national electricity demand. Despite the operational importance of Apanás — Nicaragua's only large reservoir and a RAMSAR-listed wetland since 1971 — no routine public disclosure of its fill level or storage volume exists. The grid operator CNDC publishes daily energy dispatch summaries on its website but contains no hydrological component. INETER maintains a hydrometry directorate and is mandated to generate publicly accessible water data, but its web infrastructure is partially broken (SSL errors) and no searchable reservoir portal is reachable online. The broader political context is decisive. Under the Ortega–Murillo government, institutional transparency has deteriorated sharply: Nicaragua's Corruption Perceptions Index score reached a historic low of 14/100 in 2024–2025 (rank 175 of 182 globally), the government failed US State Department minimum fiscal transparency standards in 2024, and Freedom House downgraded Nicaragua's internet freedom from Partly Free to Not Free in March 2025 following the revocation of independent media .ni domains. The absence of reservoir data in the public domain is consistent with a systematic pattern of information opacity across state-owned enterprises. No open data portal (datos.gob.ni or equivalent) exists for the energy or water sectors. The only internationally accessible data on Nicaraguan electricity is aggregate annual generation figures published in PDF by ARIAE and in summary tables by OLADE — neither includes reservoir volumes. Significant institutional investment in both data infrastructure and political will toward transparency would be required before Nicaragua could achieve a meaningful RTI score.
Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0