The 12th Australian Stream Management (ASM) Conference marks 30 years since the inaugural event, providing a timely opportunity to reflect on the evolution of waterway management. Under the theme ‘Living and evolving with change’, this paper builds on a companion Part 1 reflection — from a waterway management authority, academic and consultant perspective — focused on waterways across the Greater Melbourne region. While reflection is valuable in its own right, its greatest utility lies in providing a lens to look to how the sector will adapt to future challenges.
This paper nominally looks forward 30 years, exploring how waterway management may evolve across key themes including: shifting philosophies and narratives, emerging threats, strategic planning, works programs, monitoring and assessment, enabling technologies, stakeholder engagement, and political will. From these reflections, we identify approaches to guide future practice including the importance of clear, forward-looking narratives coupled with a focus on progressive industry maturity, stepwise outcomes, and readiness to seize opportunities. We acknowledge that transformative change often reflects long-term effort aligned with external context or events beyond our control.
We also recognise the critical role of individuals in driving progress and cultivating and supporting future ‘waterway champions’. Emerging enablers—such as recognition of rivers as living entities, First Nations self-determination, headwater protection, ‘room for the river’, nature-based solutions, and new technologies —are identified as central to future practice.
We propose a guiding principles to support decision-making across the industry, encouraging a shared lens through which to navigate an uncertain but evolving future.