Niel Kriel, Operations Hydrogeologist at Rio Tinto, Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Hydrogeologist with a keen interest in dewatering and associated groundwater management.
Niel has been fortunate enough to have worked in dewatering across multiple industries in a short amount of time. He was exposed to groundwater and to a larger extent mine dewatering when he started off as a geology vacation student in the Copper Belt of Zambia. After finishing his undergrad in geology, he went on to complete a post-graduate honours and masters in hydrogeology whilst working part-time conducting hydro and geophysical investigations and consulting. A year into his master’s he found himself moving to Qatar where he worked as a dewatering design engineer for a couple of years, during this early stage of his career where he was exposed to a lot of dewatering related work with the rapid expansion of Qatar and assisting our European branches with dewatering design. After Qatar, Niel and his wife moved to Australia where he worked as a consulting hydrogeologist supporting our dewatering consulting network in Perth and surrounds. Fast forward to the present day where he currently sits as the operations hydrogeologist responsible for in-pit dewatering and groundwater management in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia. Across his journey he has been exposed to several different dewatering strategies within different aquifer systems, each with its own set of challenges whether its drawdown related or regulatory restricted.