Living and evolving with change: 30 years of the Australian Stream Management (ASM) Conferences

This paper takes brief look back at the last 30 years of Australian Stream Management (ASM) conferences to situate and preface the 12ASM conference and proceedings. It synthesises insights from 30 years of the Australian Stream Management (ASM) conference proceedings and recent published Open Access journal papers that undertake a longitudinal review of the sector (Russell et al., 2023, 2026). We reflect on how the industry has matured and consider how it could and should evolve in the future. Since the inaugural 1ASM (in 1996), the ASM conferences have provided a unique national forum for the stream management industry to share knowledge and advance river and stream management (Fryirs et al., 2013). After the 6ASM, 16 years on, over 500 papers were analysed to track the progress, problems and prospects in Australian stream management (published in Fryirs et al., 2013). 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 was published Open Access in Russell et al. (2023). It also provided five recommendations
for the future.

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 was published Open Access in
Russell et al. (2026).

Despite substantial progress and maturation of the ASM industry, critical gaps remain in community participation, proactive adaptive management, and the translation of knowledge into policy and practice at scale, and these gaps have remained in the industry for several decades (Fryirs et al., 2013). We argue that the next phase of industry evolution will depend less on generating more data and new knowledge and more on mobilising coordinated, collective action while taking the opportunity to innovate further. We will need to live and evolve with change – in the environment and climate, in society and culture, and in technology and data availability including how we incorporate the diversity of knowledge and how we responsibly use AI. We must do this while retaining the collaborative and knowledge-sharing approach that makes the ASM industry and community one of the global exemplars of participatory best practice. The ASM community is uniquely positioned to shape its own future.