The Living Murray Program has resulted in medium to long-term monitoring datasets being collected at numerous sites throughout the Murray-Darling Basin. The floodplain understorey vegetation at the Chowilla TLM Icon site, on the border of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, has been monitored annually since 2006. During the condition monitoring program the Chowilla Floodplain experienced the worst drought in living memory with the longest recorded period with no over bank flows, two watering interventions, two over bank floods, numerous smaller flow pulses, the construction and operation of the Chowilla Environmental Regulator and implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Monitoring has shown understorey vegetation is resilient and responded to watering prior to the 2010 flood and over bank flooding with recruitment of amphibious and floodplain species. The response is typically short-lived, with terrestrial vegetation establishing within two years of inundation; however, this is expected as most floodplain species are annuals or short-lived perennials. The response to regulator operation has been muted, probably due to grazing by native vertebrates, which have increased in numbers since the 2010-11 flood. Despite the good temporal data sets relating to changes in vegetation patterns, the processes that influence the patterns are less well understood and their function is even less well understood.