Sustainability of freshwater biodiversity and ecosystems has never been more challenged. Environmental flows are often viewed as a foundation for ecological water management, but there are many challenges associated with implementation of e-flows in systems that are increasingly contested by multiple stakeholders, including the environment. Resolution of these challenges defy purely scientific-engineering ‘solutions’ because they lack clear problem definition and comprise differing, often strongly conflicting, stakeholder perspectives. In this presentation, we present a conceptual framework for attaining freshwater sustainability, based on four key ideas: 1) linking social-ecological perspectives with network theory in order to define the quantitative relationships between network entities (nodes); 2) developing better, mechanistic models of social, economic and ecological water needs; 3) application of dynamic optimization models to balance tradeoffs between multiple 'sectors' (social, economic, ecological, cultural) under time-varying regimes of water needs and availability; and 4) understanding how multiple sectors are vulnerable to nonstationary pressures, especially climate change. This model conceptual framework can be used to inform management policies around water allocation to multiple sectors and to identify under what conditions resilience of the whole multi-sectoral social-ecological system is likely.