Noel Merrick is a groundwater modeller, hydrogeologist and geophysicist with over 40 years experience in groundwater management issues and policies. He retired in 2009 as an Associate Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, where he was Director of the National Centre for Groundwater Management and ran courses in Groundwater Modelling, Groundwater Geophysics and Groundwater Policy and Management. Since then he has led a small business enterprise specialising in groundwater modelling, peer review services and software development, particularly for the mining industry.As a researcher, he pioneered methods for resource sustainability quantification and management, particularly using optimisation techniques, and has been engaged in research projects with the Aquaculture, Rice, Cotton and Contaminant CRCs. He developed software that is being used by the NSW government to facilitate groundwater trading. As a consultant, he has undertaken many environmental impact studies for major infrastructure, resource and mining projects. He was a member of the NSW working group that drafted the State Groundwater Policy documents and recently has been instrumental in the final form of the NSW Aquifer Interference Policy. He has participated on several expert panels for the NSW government, is a salinity auditor for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, and has been a modelling advisor to the Commonwealth government and to five State governments. Noel is in demand as a peer reviewer and mentor on many groundwater assessments and modelling studies, particularly coal mine assessments.