H1 2026 Evaluation
Somalia Reservoir Transparency
F0Opaque — Ranked #166 out of 167 countries
weight 30%
weight 20%
weight 15%
weight 13%
weight 10%
weight 8%
weight 5%
Primary source evaluated
Somalia Ministry of Energy and Water Resources — Hydrometeorological Department
https://moewr.gov.so/hydro-metrology/Dimension breakdown
Data Availability
20% of total score
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: Somalia has no significant dams or managed reservoirs. The Jubba and Shabelle rivers are the main water sources but lack storage infrastructure. The MoEWR Hydrometeorological Department publishes flood forecasting and drought outlooks but no reservoir storage data, as no such reservoirs exist. FAO SWALIM provides some hydrological monitoring for groundwater and river flows.
Technical Accessibility
15% of total score
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: The MoEWR website is functional but contains only qualitative reports and PDF assessments. No machine-readable data endpoints exist. FAO SWALIM provides some downloadable datasets but these cover land and groundwater, not reservoir storage.
Coverage
30% of total score
No managed national reservoirs exist. Small sand dams and traditional water harvesting structures are the only storage, none of which are monitored or reported centrally.
Historical Depth
13% of total score
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: Pre-civil war (pre-1991) hydrological records exist in scattered FAO and UN archives but are not accessible through any national portal. No continuous historical series of reservoir data is available because no reservoirs exist.
Update Frequency
10% of total score
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: The MoEWR publishes irregular flood bulletins and seasonal drought outlooks. No regular reservoir reporting cycle exists. The institutional capacity for routine data publication remains severely limited by ongoing conflict and state fragility.
Methodological Transparency
8% of total score
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: The National Water Resource Strategy 2021-2025 outlines monitoring objectives but does not document a reservoir measurement methodology. FAO SWALIM methodology for river monitoring is partially documented.
Language and Usability
5% of total score
MoEWR website is primarily in Somali and Arabic with some English content. FAO SWALIM provides English-language documentation. No multilingual reservoir data interface exists.
Evaluator notes
Somalia scores near-zero on the RTI not because of poor governance intent — the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources and FAO SWALIM represent genuine institutional efforts — but because Somalia has no significant managed reservoir infrastructure. The Jubba and Shabelle river systems flow through southern Somalia without major dam storage. Water harvesting relies on small sand dams, hafirs (traditional cisterns), and seasonal ponds that are entirely unmonitored centrally. The ongoing al-Shabaab insurgency, federal-regional political fragmentation, and extreme infrastructure underdevelopment make any near-term improvement in reservoir data transparency structurally impossible. The World Bank's 2025 Holhol Dam rehabilitation and similar small-scale projects may eventually create the first formal reservoir monitoring points in the country, but national-scale data publication remains years away.
Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0