Rural drinking water safety is an important symbol of consolidating the results of poverty alleviation and promoting rural revitalization. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the Ministry of Water Resources thoroughly implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's ideas on water control and the spirit of important expositions on water control, fully implemented the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on consolidating and expanding the results of poverty alleviation and effectively connecting rural revitalization, and worked with relevant departments to guide Local governments have made every effort to promote the "3+1" standardized construction and management model of rural water supply ("3" refers to the integration of urban and rural water supply, large-scale centralized water supply, and standardized construction and transformation of small water supply projects; "1" refers to county unified management and professional management and protection of rural water supply). By the end of 2025, the national rural tap water penetration rate and the proportion of rural population covered by large-scale water supply projects have reached 96% and 71% respectively, an increase of 13 and 21 percentage points respectively from the end of 2020, providing solid water supply support and guarantee for promoting comprehensive rural revitalization and accelerating agricultural and rural modernization. Our country has built the rural centralized water supply system that serves the largest population in the world, and has become the country that has made the greatest efforts to improve the drinking water situation of the rural population in the world.

Main experience and practices:

⭐Established a main line of high-quality development from "drinking water safety" to "water supply security".

In line with the new situation and new requirements of consolidating and expanding the results of poverty alleviation and effectively connecting rural revitalization, nine departments including the Ministry of Water Resources, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued the "Guiding Opinions on Providing Rural Water Supply Guarantee", which clearly proposed the development concept of promoting the transformation of rural drinking water safety to rural water supply guarantee, extending from drinking water for rural residents to water guarantee for toilet renovation, washing, environmental sanitation, and secondary and tertiary industry development. Guide local governments to implement the construction of large-scale water supply projects and standardized transformation of small projects based on the construction of stable water sources, continuously improve the level of rural water supply security, comply with the yearning of rural residents for a better life, and comprehensively promote rural revitalization. The Ministry of Water Resources issued the "National "14th Five-Year Plan" Rural Water Supply Guarantee Plan", which clarified the planning goals and key tasks and decomposed it to each province, requiring local levels to decompose it to cities, counties and each year; it guided all localities to prepare provincial-level high-quality rural water supply development plans and issue them after approval by the provincial people's government. New standards for rural water supply have been proposed, further optimizing and improving the four "hard" indicators of water quality, water quantity, water convenience and water supply guarantee rate, and adding "soft" indicators such as water pricing mechanism, water supply maintenance services, professional management, water source protection, and water user participation. Hunan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Guangxi, Yunnan, Gansu and other provinces and regions have introduced three-year action plans to improve quality and efficiency and transform pipe networks to continue to improve rural water supply security.

⭐Consolidate and expand the "two-hand effort" investment and financing mechanism and improve the rural water supply engineering system.

In terms of water source security, central fiscal water conservancy development funds will be arranged from 2024 to 2025 to support the construction of small water diversion projects in 120 counties to open up the "last mile" of rural water supply. In terms of water supply project construction, guide local governments to prioritize the implementation of integrated urban and rural water supply construction based on actual conditions, vigorously promote the large-scale development of centralized water supply, and implement standardized construction and transformation of small water supply projects according to local conditions. In terms of funding guarantees, the Ministry of Water Resources, in conjunction with the National Development Bank and the Agricultural Development Bank of China, has issued special credit support policies, and various localities have actively used franchises, equity cooperation and other models to attract social investment. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the three provinces of Shandong, Anhui, and Sichuan implemented rural water supply project construction funds of 59.024 billion yuan, 53.53 billion yuan, and 43.293 billion yuan respectively. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, a total of 590.28 billion yuan of project construction funds were implemented across the country, of which financial credit and social investment funds accounted for 46%. There are currently 3.816 million rural water supply projects across the country, serving a rural population of 850 million. The number of small water supply projects has been significantly reduced, forming a project pattern in which large-scale water supply is the mainstay and small water supply is supplementary. The stability and reliability of water supply guarantee have been significantly enhanced.

⭐Innovatively formed a unified county management model for professional management and maintenance of rural water supply projects.

In order to systematically improve the professional management and maintenance level, on the basis of comprehensively promoting the implementation of the "three responsibilities" of local government main responsibility, industry supervision responsibility and operation management responsibility, local governments are guided to focus on weak links in the management and maintenance of small projects, and promote the county unified management model of unified management, unified monitoring, unified operation and maintenance and unified services of rural water supply projects with the county as a unit. By the end of 2025, through integrated urban and rural operations, professional institutional coordination, and entrusted third-party management, 72% of rural water supplies in counties and cities across the country have achieved unified county management. In order to systematically improve the level of water quality assurance, the Ministry of Water Resources, together with relevant departments, has launched a special action to improve rural water supply quality, guiding local governments to strengthen water source protection, improve purification and disinfection facilities and equipment, strengthen water quality testing and monitoring, and build a full-process water quality assurance system from water sources to faucets. By the end of 2025, the demarcation of township-level water source protection zones and the establishment of signboards have been basically completed, and the overall level of rural water supply quality has been further improved. In order to systematically improve the level of intelligent management, it guides local governments to integrate rural water supply project construction, comprehensively use intelligent sensing, Internet of Things, big data, GIS and other technologies to coordinate the construction of digital twins and achieve phased results. It has launched 30 typical cases that can be replicated and promoted, which has effectively improved the digital, grid-based and intelligent management level of rural water supply.

⭐Established and improved the "dynamic clearing" supervision mechanism for rural water supply issues and the "both emergency and emergency" emergency support system

In terms of supervision mechanism, relying on the 12314 supervision and reporting platform of the Ministry of Water Resources, a four-level linkage response mechanism of the ministry, province, city, and county has been established to unblock the channels for supervision by the masses and establish a dynamic clearing mechanism for rural water supply problems. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, a number of "urgent, difficult and anxious" problems reported by the masses have been solved, and the complaint handling rate and water consumption satisfaction of the masses have continued to increase. Various localities are actively exploring innovations. For example, Shaanxi Province has opened a provincial supervision hotline 4000012314, launched a WeChat mini program and petition platform, and established a "quick response network" for grassroots water demands. In terms of consolidating and expanding the results of poverty alleviation, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the central government continued to support the maintenance and repair of rural water supply projects, guiding various localities to implement funds of 23.827 billion yuan, completing the repair and maintenance of 476,700 rural water supply projects, and the rural water supply guarantee rate and timely maintenance rate were significantly improved. In terms of emergency support, local governments were guided to improve emergency plans for rural water supply, improve emergency response mechanisms, and build a water supply security network for both emergency and emergency use, which effectively withstood the impact of natural disasters such as the unprecedented drought in the Yangtze River Basin in 2022 and the continuous drought in the Huanghuai region of North China in 2024. Through measures such as emergency pipe network construction, use of backup water sources, emergency dispatch, and water delivery, the safety of drinking water for the masses in disaster years was ensured.

The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical period for our country to basically realize socialist modernization, lay a solid foundation, and make full efforts. In line with the requirement that "rural areas basically have modern living conditions", there are still problems such as unbalanced development of urban and rural water supply, insufficient development of rural water supply, and unstable rural drinking water safety. We must thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on rural drinking water safety, speed up the filling of shortcomings in rural modern living conditions, achieve systematic advancement and systematic improvement of rural water supply governance and management capabilities, and ensure decisive progress in basically realizing the modernization of rural water supply.

01 Connect with the national water network to inject "source of living water" into rural revitalization

Fully connect the national backbone water network with provincial, municipal and county water networks, rely on large and medium-sized reservoirs and water diversion projects, strengthen the construction of water transmission projects and supporting water plants, continue to promote the construction of small water diversion projects, promote the interconnection of rural water supply pipe networks and water networks at all levels, and improve the overall coordination and allocation capabilities of water resources. Comprehensively strengthen the construction of rural water supply networks, gradually form an integrated and interconnected water supply pattern between urban and rural areas, and improve urban and rural water supply security capabilities. Vigorously develop the "water supply +" service model to systematically ensure rural living, production, and ecological water needs, improve the living environment, production conditions, and quality of life, ensure that farmers can find jobs and start businesses on the spot and become rich, provide stable, reliable, and high-quality water supply support for the overall revitalization of rural areas, and improve the level of basic public water conservancy services.

02Continue to implement the "3+1" model and promote the "three transformations" of rural water supply

Fully connect the urban-rural integration and rural revitalization strategies, take overall consideration of industrial layout, village changes and population flow trends, take the county as a unit, prioritize the integration of urban and rural water supply, and scale centralized water supply, implement standardized construction and renovation of small projects according to local conditions, accelerate the renovation and renovation of old pipe networks, and promote the transformation of rural water supply from "unit decentralization" to "scale concentration". By the end of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the national rural tap water penetration rate will reach 98%, and the proportion of large-scale water supply projects covering the rural population will reach 78%. Strengthen water source protection, promote the replacement of qualified and stable water sources, achieve "replacement of all needs", reasonably support and improve purification and disinfection facilities and equipment, achieve "replacement of all needs", strengthen water quality testing and monitoring of source water, factory water and peripheral water, promote data sharing, achieve "test of all needs", and promote the transformation of rural water supply from "water to drink" to "drinking good water". Comprehensively implement county unified management, improve professional management teams and digital and intelligent management platforms, accelerate the construction of digital twin rural water supply projects, and promote the transformation of rural water supply from "traditional management" to "digital and intelligent management". By the end of the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, the proportion of rural counties under unified management nationwide will reach 90%.

03Strengthen the construction of emergency support system and improve the resilience of rural water supply safety

In order to deal with the frequent occurrence of extreme weather events and the increasing number, frequency, intensity and widespread of floods and droughts, we should promote the interconnection of county water supply pipe networks and regional water supply networking, strengthen the construction of emergency backup water sources, scientifically arrange emergency water intake points, and improve the safety and resilience of rural water supply. Establish and improve a three-level grid-based rural water supply monitoring system at the county, township and village levels. Comprehensive use of new productive forces such as digital twins, smart sensing, the Internet of Things, and big data, to monitor and analyze changes in water use for disabled people such as lonely elderly people in real time, provide timely feedback on abnormal situations and provide door-to-door services, embodying "humanistic care." Unblock the Ministry of Water Resources’ 12314 and rural water supply service hotlines at provincial, municipal and county levels, strengthen engineering repair and maintenance, coordinate and give full play to the role of county unified management units, village collectives, and water management personnel, fully draw on the "Maple Bridge Experience" in the new era, identify and solve problems at the grassroots level, and build a solid bottom line for rural water supply safety. [The author Hu Meng is the deputy director of the China Irrigation and Drainage Development Center (Rural Drinking Water Safety Center of the Ministry of Water Resources), and Li Lianxiang is the director of the Drinking Water Safety Department of the China Irrigation and Drainage Development Center (Rural Drinking Water Safety Center of the Ministry of Water Resources)]

Information source: "Rural Work Newsletter" Issue 2, 2026