Vegetation in riparian and wetland habitats is widely recognised as a critical component of our riverine landscapes, especially in drylands, supporting diverse biodiversity and a wide range of essential ecosystem functions and services of disproportionately high value relative to the area it occupies. Driven predominantly by hydrology, riparian and wetland vegetation exhibits a great degree of resilience and adaptive capacity to changing environmental conditions. Nevertheless, human pressures from both terrestrial and aquatic realms have resulted in significant effects in these ecosystems, in Australia and globally, including habitat and biodiversity loss, dramatic shifts in vegetation composition and structure and altered ecosystem functions. Consequently, riparian and wetland vegetation has become a major focus for much recent environmental policy and many management interventions, including environmental flow delivery and revegetation initiatives. Decision-making regarding such interventions, however, involves many challenges ranging from the development of ecological objectives and targets through to the implementation of actions as well as their monitoring and evaluation. Here, I will consider our current understanding of the ecology of riparian and wetland vegetation with an emphasis on that in Australia’s drylands, drawing on my own research in the Lake Eyre and Murray-Darling Basins over the past twenty years. In particular, I will explore the current paradigm underpinning our perspective of riparian and wetland vegetation especially in relation to present management strategies and discuss the role of ecological science in decision-making.