In recent years, Huai'an has focused on building a comprehensive water resources management system, implementing a series of steady yet swift reforms, and crafting a new chapter in the city's water governance in the modern era.

Control over river and lake spaces has been continuously strengthened. Strict measures have been implemented for zoned and classified management of water areas and shorelines, promoting the integration and shared use of river management boundaries with the results of the "Three Zones and Three Lines" delineation. This advances the intensive, economical, and orderly use of river and lake shoreline resources, providing robust spatial support for high-quality economic and social development.

The River and Lake Chief System has been upgraded. A management framework of "dual chief river officials plus a four-tier river and lake chief system" has been established, innovatively implementing the "one river chief with two assistants" mechanism, and pioneering a joint law enforcement model of "river chief + inspection chief + police chief" to strengthen the rectification of water-related issues.

Reforms in key areas have been actively advanced. Mechanisms such as water resource rights financing and credit management have been explored, with the water conservancy department collaborating with the finance department and the Huai'an branch of the People's Bank of China to promote "water rights loans" as a green financial service; pilot projects for water rights trading have also been launched in Qingjiangpu District.

Huai'an has also focused on integrating digital innovation into water conservancy projects and deepening service reforms to promote more standardized and efficient water management. The city has revised and issued the Implementation Measures for the Management of Water Conservancy Projects in Huai'an and formulated the Huai'an Hydrological Management Measures; by leveraging smart construction platforms and IoT technologies, major projects can be monitored and controlled through a single interface. Regarding the second-phase project of the Huai River Estuary Channel, four construction methods and ten patents have been applied for. To date, the city has established 31 provincial-level water management units and standardized 79 small reservoirs.