Connected by Water 2026 brought together leaders from across sectors to explore how water can drive climate resilience, economic productivity and system-wide change, and why restoring natural water cycles may be the most profound gift the water sector can offer society at large.
Held in Perth, the Australian Water Association’s Connected by Water set out to break down traditional silos, bringing the water sector into conversation with industries that both depend on and shape water systems, from agriculture and mining to finance and policy.
The focus was not just on managing water, but on understanding its role as a connector across landscapes, economies and communities.
The program featured a compelling keynote from the University of Technology Sydney Adjunct Fellow Dr Katie Ross, who presented forgotten science on the other half of climate. This other ‘leg’ of climate science highlights how life moving water from land to sky and back again is a primary way Earth balances the climate, thus positioning water as a fundamental driver of how the Earth heats and cools.
Building on this, Professor Emerita Cynthia Mitchell AO led a multidisciplinary panel that explored what these ideas mean in practice for Australia.
Following Connected by Water, Mitchell and Ross travelled east to Melbourne to facilitate A Watership Workshop: Re-instating / Re-membering Small Water Cycles to Help Cool the Climate, bringing together practitioners and sector leaders to explore how these ideas can be applied in practice.
The pair then continued on to the Murray, where they were joined by Anthony James of Regen Narration podcast and a dozen intrepid travelers for the inaugural Confluence: The Water Course – a rich immersive, reflective learning event convened and facilitated by Ross and James, over a week of canoeing down the mighty Dhungala/ Murray River in western Victoria.
Here, we’re sharing the continuation of this crucial discussion that has made its way across the continent.
During her keynote presentation, Dr Katie Ross reframed one of the water sector’s biggest challenges, firstly by describing how water security and water abundance is created through regenerative landscape management, and secondly how these actions will also help us rebalance our climate.
In other words, to fully understand and address climate change, we must recognise the role of life in moving water from soils, to plants, to sky and back.
At the heart of her presentation was a simple but crucial idea: “the climate stands on two legs”, one atmospheric and one ecological. While global efforts have focused heavily on reducing emissions, Ross shared the scientific principles of why this is only half the climate story.
“Focusing only on the atmospheric side is just like focusing only on the exhale,” she said. “So what we’re doing today is diving into the inhale of climate change.”
That “inhale” is the movement of water through landscapes – from soil to plants, into the atmosphere and back again as rain. Ross described how, in healthy systems, this process regulates temperature, builds cloud cover and stabilises local climates.
Drawing on decades of systems-based science, she explained that “IPCC Earth Energy Budget diagrams shows how hydrology governs 95% of Earth’s heat dynamics”, making water a dominant yet under-recognised driver of climate behaviour.
Ross traced how these processes have been disrupted, including how land clearing, urbanisation and drainage have fundamentally altered how solar energy interacts with the Earth’s surface. Where living landscapes once absorbed and redistributed energy through transpiration, degraded systems now create and trap heat.
“Solar energy now hits cleared, hard surfaces, which creates exponential heat production,” she said, pointing to the stark contrast between vegetated and built environments.
Importantly, Ross stressed that this understanding is not new and is a well understood process by many First Peoples’ groups: “This is a very ancient story. If you cut the trees and if you drain the wetlands, you clear the clouds and you remove the rain.”
What is new is the scale of disruption and the opportunity to respond.
While acknowledging the importance of emissions reduction, Ross said: “focusing on carbon alone will be insufficient to reduce this exponential heat production”.
Instead, Ross called for a dual approach that restores natural systems alongside decarbonisation efforts.
Following Ross’s keynote, Professor Emerita Cynthia Mitchell AO led a panel that translated these concepts into practical, Australian-focused discussion, exploring both the scale of the opportunity and the pathways to action.
Mitchell began by situating Ross’s ideas within a broader shift in understanding.
“There is so much more to the drivers of climate change than we realise,” she said, reflecting on the implications for the water sector. “When we talk about what our options are going forward, there’s a whole other half that we didn’t know about. That’s real. And that’s our opportunity.”
This sense of expanded possibility became a central theme. Mitchell framed the discussion around the idea that restoring water cycles is not just an environmental objective, but a systems-level intervention with implications for climate, water security and economic resilience.
The panel brought together perspectives from regenerative agriculture, finance, policy and First Peoples’ knowledge, including Sheryl Hedges from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Dianne Haggerty, WA 2025 Australian of the Year, and Natalie Herold from Landscape Finance Lab.
Mitchell guided the conversation through two key questions: what is possible in Australia over the next decade, and how different knowledge systems and sectors can work together to achieve it.
While the panel explored technical and financial pathways, including landscape-scale investment and new funding models, Mitchell repeatedly returned to the broader significance of the work.
“The depth of the hole that we’re in right now as a community, as a society, as a planet is significant. And so more of the same, fiddling at the edges isn’t going to cut it,” she said.
Instead, the discussion pointed towards more fundamental shifts in how landscapes are managed, how investment is structured and how water is valued.
The panel reinforced that restoring water cycles is not a niche concept, but a transformative opportunity that sits at the intersection of climate, community and long-term resilience.
Following the Perth event, the conversation continued in Melbourne with A Watership Workshop: Re-instating / Re-membering Small Water Cycles to Help Cool the Climate, facilitated by Cynthia Mitchell and Dr Katie Ross.
The workshop brought together a diverse cross-section of participants from across the water and for-purpose sectors, including urban and regional utilities, catchment management authorities, environmental organisations and senior leaders spanning CEOs, Chairs and strategy and program leads. This breadth of perspectives created a strong foundation for meaningful discussion and collaboration.
Building on Ross’s keynote, the session explored how restoring small water cycles can be translated into practical action, with a focus on local application, cross-sector collaboration and systems-level thinking.
Participants engaged deeply with the concepts, with strong interest in how these ideas could inform decision-making and future investment.
A key outcome of the workshop was the formation of new connections across organisations that had not previously recognised their shared direction. Several groups began actively exploring opportunities to collaborate at a greater Melbourne scale.
Following the Melbourne Watership Workshop, Ross and Mitchell moved onto the canoeing tour, Confluence: The Water Course on the Murray River, organised and facilitated to help participants learn about their own perspectives towards water and climate.
Ross and Mitchell are strong advocates for creating space for insight – both individually and collectively. The learning experience on the river was carefully curated, combining reflective exercises with the sharing of questions and stories.
A group of 12 participants from across the country – spanning regenerative farmers to water infrastructure engineers – paddled 88km along the Murray under the guidance of local river expert Tom Floyd.
Over five days, they camped on sandbars, navigated a sudden squall, and learned from local Aboriginal leaders. The experience challenged participants to engage deeply – with the river, with each other and with themselves – creating space for both new and long-held perspectives to surface.
Participants reflected that the journey offered a rare opportunity to grapple with complex questions around how to live and lead change, with the experience leaving a lasting impact.
Looking back on the past two months, Ross and Mitchell say they are encouraged by the potential of these immersive, place-based learning experiences to foster meaningful change. Stories of landscape regeneration – as a pathway to water abundance, climate balance and healthier communities – continue to invite others to engage, collaborate and explore what’s possible.