Abstract: This study seeks to present development alternatives for a rural area in Spain within parameters of sustainability that place the option of irrigation as one among several that are possible including an institutional process of public participation and using the Nominal Group Technique as a qualitative tool for participation. These various options are delineated by the social groups involved in the decision in question. We shall expound the participatory process engaged in by the main actors involved in the problem of irrigation in the particular territory. Their visions (alternatives) of future development as well as their criteria for assessing these alternatives in the socio-economic and environmental realms are brought together and ordered. This results in a ranking of preferences with respect to the various alternatives that places irrigation in a much more marginal role than is attributed to it by certain sectors of Spanish agricultural politics, a role that is merely complementary to other options that play an essential part in development.