3 November 2014
This is the last OPIDIN bulletin of 2014. The water level in Mopti has reached its peak (596 cm) on 23 October. The flood predictions of OPIDIN since 1 August have varied not much. In August, we predicted a peak flood level of 550-600 cm. In early September we gradually downgraded the prediction to about 550 cm, but in the following weeks the prediction was gradually upgraded to 580-600 cm and still later to 590-600 cm. Hence, the forecasting during the last three months was usually close to the actually observed peak flood level in Mopti, but was 40-50 cm too low in the first half of September.
OPIDIN has started in 2013. In that year, the prediction was based on the water level measurements in Mopti. This year the predictions could be improved by integrating in the model the most recent rainfall in the Upper Niger Basin. Next year we hope to be able to further improve the predictions and also start one week earlier.
Until 3-11-2014, we have registered 2310 visits to the OPIDIN-site, in total by 1186 users from 97 different countries. So far, OPIDIN is more popular in the Netherlands (887 visits by 299 users) than in Mali (298 visits by 124 users), but there were the last months more users from Mali than from the Netherlands. Apparently, it took some time before people in Mali discovered the OPIDIN-site. For this reason, we expect that the OPIDIN-site in the next years will be visited more and more by Malian users.
As expected, the site is mostly visited in July, August and September. In total, 95% of the visitors so far used a desktop computer, 3% a mobile and 2% a tablet, but the last months an increasing number of visitors used their mobile or tablet.
The following bulletin will be published in the second half of July 2015.
