The task of bridging diverse perspectives to achieve sustainable, equitable and biodiverse futures for aquatic social-ecological systems is more urgent now than ever before. In Australia and globally, these systems are impacted by climate change and other interacting threats, which in many cases will strengthen into the future. A key challenge for researchers, managers and policymakers is to navigate diverse values, needs, knowledge and connections for aquatic systems to make robust and equitable decisions about resource use and conservation. The good news is that our tools for bringing together diverse knowledge types and navigating diverse perspectives are evolving rapidly to meet the needs. In this plenary presentation I will highlight examples of the use of co-design, transdisciplinary research approaches and two-way knowledge exchange to help build climate-resilient options and pathways for healthy aquatic systems and associated sectors in Australia and internationally.