China has paid more attention to increasing urban and rural drinking water security in recent years. Ensuring the security of drinking water in urban and rural areas is the fundamental condition for protecting the basic interests of the public and is also an important aspect of building a moderately, all-sided prosperous society in China. Taking the Shanshan County in Turpan City of Xinjiang Autonomous Region for an example, this study analyzed the countermeasures of ensuring drinking water security.

Firstly, this paper discusses the current quo of drinking water security in Shanshan. In terms of urban drinking water, problems include that: 1) drinking water sources are polluted to varying degrees; 2) water treatment technologies lag behind compared to the social development; 3) high leakage rate of water supply pipe network, and 4) low emergency handling capability. In terms of the rural drinking water, problems exist that small-scale drinking water security projects are on low construction standard, resulting in low water supply guarantee rate, and poor water source protection and water quality supervision.

Secondly, based on the analysis of current problems, the quantity of the water resources guaranteed is put forward. This paper divides Shanshan County into three units as Karuqi area, Ertanggou area and Kekeya area based on urban or rural land use. This paper proposed the optimal distribution of regional water plants and water supply network for the optimal allocation of regional water resources.

Thirdly, for water quality improvement, a corresponding water purification program is developed for raw water quality problems, including centralized and decentralized water quality treatment, as well as an intelligent water flow control process.

At the same time, some management measures such as water source conservation and risk control measures are proposed in order to promote the security of drinking water. This paper also puts forward relevant strategic suggestions for ensuring the security of drinking water in Shanshan County, including enhancing the equipment for the project, modulizing the system of devices, instrumentation of the management system and developing intellegent water management platform. This study has certain reference value for solving the problems of drinking water security in urban and rural areas in the arid regions in northwest China and similar areas around the world.