Colin Nicol
Background
Colin joined the Watershed Program in 2017 as part of the Chehalis Basin restoration assessment and priotization project. Prior to coming to the Northwest, Colin worked at the NOAA NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center where he was part of the Landscape Ecology Team working on salmonid monitoring and restoration in coastal streams. Colin recieved a B.S. from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in Environmental Management with a concentration in forest hydrology. He went on to recieve an M.S. from California State University Monterey Bay in Applied Watershed Science where he wrote a thesis on steelhead habitat assessment.
Current Research
Colin is currently working on restoration action prioritization in the Chehalis Basin by estimating landscape scale influences on fish populations. He is creating wastershed scale estimates of habitat capacity under various landuse and restoration scenarios, and linking those with salmonid lifecycle models to evaluate population level benefits of restoring habitat forming processes.