To meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 6.1, China has undertaken significant initiatives to address the uneven distribution of water resources and to enhance water quality. Since 2000, China has invested heavily in the water infrastructure of numerous reservoirs, with a total storage capacity increase of 4.704 × 1011 m3 (an increase of 90.8%). These reservoirs have significantly enhanced the available freshwater resources for drinking water. Concurrently, efforts to improve water quality in lakes and reservoirs, facilitated by nationwide water quality monitoring, have been successful. As a result, an increasing lakes and reservoirs are designated as centralized drinking water sources (CDWSs) in China. Among the 3441 CDWSs across all provinces, 40.8% are sourced from lakes and reservoirs, 32.6% from rivers, and 26.6% from groundwater in 2023. Notably, from 2016 to 2023, the percentage of lakes and reservoirs categorized as CDWSs has increased consistently across all 29 provinces. This progress has enabled 561.4 million urban residents to access improved drinking water sources in 2022, compared to 303.4 million in 2004. Our findings underscore the pivotal role of water infrastructure construction and water quality improvement jointly promoting lakes and reservoirs as vital drinking water sources. Nevertheless, the nationwide occurrence of algal blooms has surged by 113.7% from the 2000s to the 2010s , which is a considerable challenge to drinking water safety. Fortunately, algal blooms have been markedly alleviated in past four years. However, it is still crucial to acknowledge that lakes and reservoirs face the challenges of algal blooms, and associated toxic microcystin and odor compounds.