Not rated — no significant reservoirs
Tuvalu is set aside from the ranking rather than graded. Having no significant reservoir storage is a geographic fact, not a transparency failure — so assigning an “F” would be misleading.
H1 2026 Evaluation
Tuvalu Reservoir Transparency
N/AWhy it's not rated
No surface reservoirs: nine low-lying atolls with no rivers or terrain capable of impoundment.
Where its water comes from
Rainwater harvesting into household and community tanks plus solar-powered reverse-osmosis desalination.
Reference source
No surface reservoirs — structural zero. Tuvalu Government / SPC Pacific Water
https://www.pacificwater.org/pages.cfm/country-information/tuvalu.htmlEvaluator notes
Tuvalu receives a score of 0 across all RTI dimensions, but this is a structural zero — not a transparency failure. As a coral atoll archipelago reaching no more than 5 metres above sea level, Tuvalu has no terrain capable of impounding surface water. Fresh water is sourced entirely from rain catchment (household tanks, church cisterns, and a large government cistern on Funafuti) and reverse osmosis desalination. The RTI framework, which evaluates transparency around reservoir storage data, is inapplicable to Tuvalu's physical geography. Water security is nonetheless a critical and worsening issue: drought emergencies have triggered Red Cross operations (DREF MDRTV002), and climate-funded projects (PACC, GCCA+ SUPA, ADB) are expanding desalination and water storage capacity. Monitoring of rainwater tank levels and desalination output may eventually fall within a water-data-transparency framework, but such a framework would need to be designed specifically for atoll nations rather than adapted from surface-reservoir paradigms.
Evaluated by Jaime Delgado · 2026-09-15 · Methodology v1.3.0