The health, wellbeing and prosperity of Victorian communities depends on healthy waterways and catchments. However, so many of our waterways still show a legacy of damage from historic, inappropriate land and water use practices. Climate change in Victoria is expected to cause major reductions in streamflow and together with continued population growth this poses new challenges that will further compound this legacy of environmental pressure. Restoring waterway health is a long-term and large-scale commitment. It can take a generation to realise the outcomes of investment in waterway health. The Victorian Government has committed to large-scale restoration projects at 36 waterways across Victoria as part of the government’s Water for Victoria: Water Plan. Management and investment effort is focused on these 36 waterways, with 10 Flagship Waterways chosen from the 36 to pioneer a new approach to track progress towards management objectives and report back to communities, incorporating citizen science. This approach will give us a clear vision of what needs to be achieved for priority waterways, and enable better alignment of our efforts across government, catchment management authorities, Traditional Owners, local communities and other partners. The new approach at Flagship Waterways is designed to better demonstrate the social, cultural, economic and environmental benefits for communities of the investment in waterway health. Participation of Traditional Owners and community members is central to the planning, delivery and monitoring of these projects. The Victorian Government is complementing this approach with targeted intervention monitoring programs that are rigorously assessing the ecological benefits of key management interventions such as riparian restoration, environmental watering of river and wetlands and works to improve the health of native fish populations.