This paper presents research funded by the Scottish Government to enable an evaluation of the suitability of drinking water treatment technologies at small to medium scales to facilitate the application of the Scottish Government’s Sustainable Rural Communities concept. This research addressed the need to optimise the overall sustainability of small to medium sized water treatment processes for Rural Communities. This required consideration of a range of economic, environmental and social aspects of available innovative and emerging technologies across the lifecycle of their construction, installation, operation and decommissioning. This was achieved using a multi-criteria decision analysis approach, undertaken in multi-stakeholder environment that included whole life consideration of the costs and benefits of the technologies through their inclusion in the criteria. The main finding of the project is a generic 4 stage decision support process for the selection of appropriate drinking water treatment for sustainable rural communities. This is based on, and comprises of, the 3 key deliverables from the project. Firstly an inventory of technologies from which to choose candidate technologies for further evaluation, secondly a set of SRC drinking water technology selection criteria to be applied to each decision making process, thirdly a recommended MCDA tool to be populated for future decision making. The research included a technology scan to, identifying relevant drinking water treatment technologies suitable for small and medium sized rural communities in Scotland and an expert stakeholder workshop to verify and refine the technology inventory. The stakeholder workshop was also used to identify suitable selection criteria for Sustainable Rural Community Drinking water projects. The criteria that can be used in subsequent multi-stakeholder decision making on for the most sustainable treatment options for specific communities. An explanation is provided on the methodology and the types of information that were collected and the outcomes of the research.