The book addresses major challenges in implementing required reforms in Australian water policy and management, with particular focus on social sciences research and knowledge that can inform policy. The NWI (National Water Initiative) was launched in 2004, with a schedule of implementation through to 2014, and is now agreed to by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments. It is the overarching policy framework guiding Australian water management. The NWI continues and significantly extends key policy reforms in Australia over the past two decades, and brings these together into one powerful agenda which incorporates, among other things, integrated catchment management, tradable water rights, full accounting of resources and use, regional plans, and environmental allocations. The NWI sets out an ambitious and difficult reform agenda, the magnitude of which is only now beginning to be realised. Assumptions regarding implementation are being unsettled by realisations of critical knowledge deficits. This book will offer a substantial, rigorous and highly topical contribution to the capacity to implement the reform agenda in the near and medium term.