Native fish populations across the Murray-Darling Basin continue face considerable challenges in order to recover from a long history of decline, and to maintain future resilience. Since the introduction of the Basin Plan there has been a wealth of knowledge generated on native fish ecology and conservation through targeted environmental water mechanisms. The growing quantity and quality of scientific research funded and published by the Commonwealth, Murray-Darling Basin jurisdictions, and allied research entities highlights the need to continuously integrate these findings into policy initiatives. One of the functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, set by the Water Act 2007, which is to collect, utilise, and share information about Basin water resources and water dependent ecosystems. Further, under the Basin Plan 2012 the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is to prepare and periodically review both the Basin Wide Environmental Water Strategy and Basin Annual Watering Priorities. This presentation provides an overview on how both past and contemporary scientific research and evaluations have been incorporated into the Basin-Wide Environmental Water Strategy and the Basin Annual Watering Priorities for native fish—and how this information is critical in informing management scenarios.