Sudan Reservoir Transparency

No current reservoir storage or water-level data is publicly accessible from any Sudanese government source. The MIWR website and the Merowe Dam Authority portal (merowedam.gov.sd) both fail to load as of mid-2026. The civil war that began in April 2023 has caused near-total collapse of institutional data-sharing capacity: dam operators abandoned posts at Jebel Aulia, the Merowe transformer was destroyed by RSF drones in January 2025, and the Arbaat Dam near Port Sudan collapsed in August 2024. The only proxy for storage volume comes from third-party satellite altimetry (Hydroweb/G-REALM covering Roseires since ~2002), which is not a government publication and is not framed as operational Sudanese data.

No API, no open-format download, and no machine-readable data layer exists from any official Sudanese source. The Sudan Open Data Portal (sudan.opendataforafrica.org) returned HTTP 403 during evaluation and contains no hydrological data in any case. Academic research confirms that reservoir monitoring for Sudan must rely on satellite remote sensing precisely because no framework for data sharing exists from the national government. Pre-war reports were published in Arabic PDF form at best, with no structured metadata.

Capacity-weighted (v1.3.0): 0/25,000 Mm³ = 0% (Merowe 12,500 + Roseires 7,400 + Sennar + Khashm el-Girba; war has eliminated all public reservoir publishing since 2023). Prior justification (preserved for context): Denominator (RTI methodology): reservoirs with capacity >10 hm³. Sudan has approximately 7 reservoirs above this threshold: Merowe (~12,500 Mm³), Roseires/Damazin (~7,400 Mm³), Jebel Aulia (~3,000 Mm³), Khashm el-Girba (~800 Mm³), Upper Atbara/Setit complex (~3,700 Mm³ combined), Sennar (~70 Mm³ live), and the Nuba Mountains/Es Suki impoundments. Zero government-published storage data exists for any of these; Hydroweb (third-party satellite altimetry, TU Munich/CNES) covers only Roseires — meaning even the proxy international coverage is 1/~7 (~14%) and is not a Sudanese national publication. Score reflects total absence of in-country public reservoir reporting, with minor partial credit for the existence of satellite proxy on one major facility.

No machine-readable historical archive has ever been published by Sudanese authorities in an accessible form. Academic literature (notably Elshamy et al. 2023 in Water International) reconstructed historical Roseires inflows using satellite altimetry because in-situ government data was unavailable even before the war. Hydroweb provides a satellite-derived Roseires water-level time series reaching back to approximately 2002, giving roughly two decades of proxy data — but this is entirely a third-party resource requiring user registration on the Theia platform. For Merowe (operational since 2009), Jebel Aulia, and other dams no comparable historical series is publicly available. JICA project reports from the 2010s (openjicareport.jica.go.jp) provide occasional snapshots but are not systematic time series.

There is no publication schedule for reservoir data from any Sudanese institution. No regular bulletin, no seasonal report, and no near-real-time data feed have been identified from the MIWR or any affiliated body, either before or during the war. The only near-real-time data for Roseires comes from the Hydroweb altimetry service (updated within 1.5 days of new satellite pass), but this is an external French research infrastructure, not a Sudan government product. All other dams have no publicly updated data series whatsoever.

No methodology document for reservoir measurement has ever been published by Sudanese authorities in an accessible form. The civil war has eliminated even informal knowledge transfer: IHE Delft reported in 2024 that dam operators had fled their posts, making remote analysis necessary. Sudan's Corruption Perceptions Index score of 15/100 in 2024 (second-lowest globally) reflects a systemic opacity that predates the conflict. The NBI/ENTRO ENTROSpace repository hosts some technical reports on Nile Basin dam operations, but these are academic inputs, not official Sudanese measurement methodology documentation.

All official Sudanese water resources documentation is published in Arabic only, including the few surviving pre-war MIWR reports and project documents. No English-language government interface for reservoir data exists. The NBI/ENTRO publishes materials in English and is partially accessible, but Sudan-specific operational data is not present on those portals. FAO AQUASTAT provides English-language static capacity metadata but no current fill levels. International researchers must rely on satellite data and academic literature in English, none of which represents official Sudanese publication.