Lawson Cole

Lawson is an experienced water policy adviser and project manager who has a keen interest in exploring the effects that changes in policy, markets and environmental conditions have on industry, people and communities. He combines knowledge of geography, science and environmental policy to navigate complex problems to distil practical and actionable insights for clients.

Lawson’s strengths lie in his ability to provide detailed policy and strategic advice to diverse clients. Lawson has extensive experience leading and contributing to major projects spanning rural water policy and management, water markets, regulatory economic policy, emergency management and regional development. Lawson has contributed to several significant Commonwealth and state-based water management reforms, as well as numerous policy and strategy advisory projects for government and corporate clients. Lawson is also an adept project manager who applies robust approaches and tools to achieve project outcomes. He has successfully project managed services for many complex and multidisciplinary projects for Commonwealth and State government clients. He is currently project managing the Healthy Floodplains Project for DPIE Water (Jul 2020- Dec 2021) which aims to reform the management of water in the northern NSW floodplains. In this role he coordinates across technical teams responsible for data collection, hydrological modelling, licensing, water planning, policy, public consultation. He also managed Aither support for the Independent Panel assessing social and economic conditions in the MDB (2019-2020). Lawson is also a competent writer, having contributed numerous publicly available reports during his consulting career as well as peer-reviewed journals.