Nigel has been a Committee Member of Stormwater NSW since 2017 and part of the stormwater industry since the 1990s. Nigel is the only non-Sydney representative on the committee, based in Newcastle.

Nigel’s interest in stormwater started as a cadet with the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority, serving as the RTA representative on the Stormwater Management Committees, funded in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics. Nigel’s undergraduate thesis investigated the various tertiary treatments of urban stormwater, available at the time.

Nigel has worked for various engineering consultancies, working primarily on stormwater design, flood modelling and water quality. This experience, on large scale land development and infrastructure projects, as well as standalone stormwater basin projects, has allowed Nigel to apply his passion for stormwater to develop pragmatic solutions.

As an engineer, Nigel appreciates that stormwater management is best integrated into the urban environment and landscape. As a human, Nigel realises this integration is often not best led by engineers. Stormwater management measures, to be successful, need to achieve the objectives of water quality improvement by also providing visual amenity, livability, urban cooling and maintaining vegetation structure and health. To achieve these goals, urban design, landscape and engineering needs to be integrated and coordinated. Engineers need to bring a broad understanding of hydrology, ecology, biology and chemistry to the process and work within the other stormwater professionals to build community assets.