With best practice flood risk management processes rightly emphasising the need for a collaborative, transparent and inclusive approach to improve community resilience, this paper explores a new Engagement Decision Support System (EDSS) as a mechanism to assist in this process. This paper presents the need, theory and development of a flood risk management EDSS and presents trial results, where the tool has been successfully utilised for three catchments in New South Wales, Australia. The results from these trials indicate that a well-structured, engagement focused decision support system can provide a mechanism for and empower the public to learn about, prioritise and make informed decisions about floodplain management options for their local catchment in a transparent objective facilitated process
