Poster Presentation 12th Australian Streams Management Conference 2026

Living and evolving with change: 30 years of the Australian Stream Management conferences. (#12)

Kirstie Fryirs 1 , Geoff Vietz 2 , Kathy Russell 3 , Claire Fitzpatrick 4 , Ian RUTHERFURD 3
  1. Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia
  2. Streamology, Melbourne
  3. University of Melbourne, Melbourne
  4. Hydrobiology, Perth

The Australian Stream Management (ASM) conferences have been running for 30 years. Under the leadership of Professor Ian Rutherfurd, the ASM community gathered way back in 1996 at 1ASM. No equivalent forum existed in Australia to gather the researcher, practitioners and citizens in one place to discuss all things river, waterways, stream management.

After 10ASM, 25 years on, over 1000 papers from the 1ASM to 10ASM were analysed to determine the ‘who, what and how’ of stream management in Australia and how it has matured over time. This analysis is published Open Access in Russell et al. (2023). The five recommendations from that work are:

  1. Work holistically to create communities of practice
  2. Implement nature-based solutions
  3. Substantially improve stability and resourcing of the ‘industry’ to implement proactive adaptive management.
  4. Preserve and use what we know more effectively.
  5. Step-change ‘industry’ influence on policy and implement large-scale stream management

At 11ASM, these recommendations were workshopped, drawing on the knowledge, wisdom, ambitions and voices held within the industry. The findings provide a blueprint of action strategies to be implemented by individuals, employers and professional bodies if we are to build and leverage the collective social capital of the industry and harness the will to act. This has been published Open Access in Russell et al. (2026).

From the icebreaker opening to the close of the 12ASM we will seek to consider how to enact this strategy and mature even further the next 30 years of stream management in Australia.