Here we discuss the use of a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) to inform water resource management decisions in a Southern Australian regional catchment, the Marne Saunders Prescribed Water Resources Area (PWRA). This catchment experienced a run of dry years from 2017 to 2021, which resulted in declining surface and groundwater resource condition and calls from the community for a government response to manage the risks associated with reduced water availability. In response, the Landscape Board undertook a novel process to engage both the community and domain experts using the framework of a risk-based MCA. The community was engaged to discover their goals for water resources management and to generate strategies for achieving these goals. Departmental experts, including hydrologists, hydrogeologists, ecologists and policy analysts, were then engaged through a structured expert elicitation process to quantify the likely benefits, risks and trade-offs for each of the proposed options. Another round of community engagement then reviewed the output of the expert elicitation process and weighted the importance of the benefits and risks associated with each of the community-derived strategies. The outcomes of this engagement and analysis are discussed including the extent to which this process leads to defensible water resource management decisions that adequately represents community values and the best available scientific knowledge and information. We also discuss the novel use of analytical frameworks including risk assessment, decision theory and multi-criteria analysis in the context of multi-stakeholder engagement to inform government policy.