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The transition of a country or a whole society to sustainability is a long-term goal that involves a society's willingness to carry out such a change and the governance structure to support it. Understanding the role of the governance structure in enabling or constraining the change dynamics of societal values can more effectively foster desired transitions. This paper aims to reveal the co-evolutionary dynamics in the transition processes of the societal value of water resources and the network configurations of water governance in Australia and China in different socioecological contexts. Newspapers were used to track societal value and structural change in water governance. One mainstream newspaper was selected from each country, spanning a timeframe of 175 years in Australia and 72 years in China. The key finding is that the transition in societal value in both countries followed a similar sigmoid function. The value transition process in both countries benefited from a centralized governance structure, particularly in the take-off stage of the transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News accounts both reflect and influence public opinion through their noted 'agenda-setting' capability. We examined newspaper articles in Australia's The Sydney Morning Herald from 1843 to 2011 to observe the evolution of media coverage on water issues related to water resources management. The results showed that water supply-related articles have dominated the reporting of water issues since 1843. This emphasis is reflected in the institutions involved and their related policy/management initiatives, as well as the themes of the articles. Extreme events such as flooding and drought have punctuated the historical record of reports on water issues. An economic development-driven tone was overwhelmingly predominant in newspaper articles (85 % of the total); however, there has been a marked decline in the importance of development-driven tone relative to environmental-sustainability oriented tone of articles since 1994. People from academia and NGOs were rarely quoted. Inclusion of wider range stakeholders should be considered as a strategic break-through and natural events should be considered as an 'opportunity' to change public opinion on water issues for environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]