PEOPLE
Chris Nicol
A Hydrogeologist with 20+ years' experience in Australia and the UK. Chris has a strong background in conceptual hydrogeological model development, in addition to data analysis and modelling ranging from simple to highly complex. This is always undertaken with a strong consideration of uncertainty and what that may mean for risk, and ultimately for project-dependent decision-making.
Chris has worked on projects relating to: mapping and conceptualisation, optimisation and environmental impact assessment of groundwater supplies, mine and quarry dewatering, construction and geotechnical investigations, groundwater reinjection feasibility, contaminant/solute transport, and integrated groundwater-surface water resource management studies.
Chris enjoys developing unique methodologies and tools for assessing and managing the risks of groundwater usage and land use change to water resources. He also has expertise in hydrogeological mapping, GIS, data management, and programming.
Chris is proficient with a range of modelling codes and other software, including:
- The MODFLOW family (including MODFLOW6, MODFLOW-USG, SURFACT and MODHMS);
- PEST & related utilities;
- Finite element codes HYDRUS and FEFLOW;
- Model pre- and post-processors: Flopy, AlgoMesh, Groundwater Vistas, Visual Modflow, GMS, MODPATH and mod-PATH3DU;
- Soil moisture balance and land use models such as PERFECT and WAVES;
- Software development and data analysis: Fortran, Python, R, Visual Basic (Applications/.Net), Access, Excel;
- Spatial data analysis / visualisation: ArcGIS, QGis, GDAL/OGR, Paraview, Surfer, GSLib.