Portugal Reservoir Transparency

For the COVERED subset (~60 reservoirs across the 8 hydrographic regions RH1-RH8), APA publishes weekly storage bulletins consistently. The typical covered reservoir has weekly publication of storage volumes (hm³), fill percentages, and basin-level aggregates. APA publishes structured HTML tables consistently on the SNIRH portal.

For the COVERED subset, the dominant access mechanism is structured HTML tables requiring scraping. No public REST API or bulk download endpoint. CSV exports exist for some datasets but are not consistently maintained. The SNIRH portal interface is functional but dated.

Conservative estimate — denominator includes private hydropower operational storage (EDP and IberDrola hold operational live data not all consolidated into the APA SNIRH weekly publication), small irrigation reservoirs of Aproveitamentos Hidroagrícolas, municipal water-supply reservoirs not in the SNIRH weekly bulletin, and minor reservoirs near the 10 hm³ threshold. Methodology v1.3.0 (capacity-weighted). Covered capacity through SNIRH weekly bulletins is approximately 12,500 hm³. A realistic national denominator including the private hydropower live-data tail and small irrigation/municipal storage reaches approximately 14,200 hm³. Score = round(100 × 12,500 / 14,200) = 88. All major reservoirs across the 8 hydrographic regions are covered including transboundary basins shared with Spain; the conservative discount reflects the systematic gap in private hydropower live storage and small irrigation/municipal impoundments.

MEDIAN historical depth across the ~57 covered reservoirs is approximately 15-20 years. SNIRH archives weekly data going back approximately 10-15 years online, with some seasonal basin-level summaries extending further. Long-record reservoirs (Alqueva commissioned 2002, Castelo de Bode 1951) have multi-decade institutional records. Median sits comfortably in the 10-20 years band, leaning toward the upper end. Not as deep as Spain's 35-year record.

For the COVERED subset, the typical cadence is WEEKLY publication via the SNIRH bulletin. Updates are consistent but there is no daily or real-time feed.

For the COVERED subset, APA publishes technical methodology documents for the SNIRH system and reservoir measurement protocols. Metadata per reservoir is available but scattered across different pages. Stage-storage curves and bathymetric survey histories are partially documented.

Portuguese only. The SNIRH interface is functional but dated, with no English-language access path for international users.