Humans, through continuous land and water development, have created river civilisations but severely undermined riverine and estuarine ecological integrity. New disciplines have emerged for understanding the human-water relationship (socio-hydrology), human-land relationship (socio-geomorphology) and human-environmental relationship (social-ecological system framework). Due to the complexity of interactions among hydrological processes, geomorphological processes, ecological processes, economic processes and societal processes at river basins and the uncertainty of regime shifts of these interactions at spatial and temporal scales, science is still far behind practice.  More knowledge is needed to improve river operation and catchment management for the sustainable relationship between water, land, environment and people at the Anthropocene. This proposal welcomes multidisciplinary qualitative and quantitative studies from hydrology, geomorphology, ecology, geography, anthropology, environmental sciences, economics, and sociology to improve theoretical understanding and develop novel approaches to address this burning challenge.