To carry out the investigation, surveillance, evaluation and research with regard to the impacts of drinking water pollution on public health, water quality of municipal drinking water supplies and waterborne diseases to study the surveillance, evaluation control technology for health risks of new pollutants in drinking water, to organize the formulation and revision of sanitary standard for drinking water and test method standard, establish and improve the national surveillance network for urban drinking water sanitation, deliberate the sanitation stringency disposal technologies for major natural disasters and drinking water pollution incidents, participate in the sanitation stringency disposal and provide technical supports.

NIEH has completed a number of the research work on subjects at ministerial and provincial levels, including the Drinking Water Quality Detection and Waterborne Disease Monitoring Technology and Drinking Water Disinfection Technology integrated in the Research Subjects of State Science and Technology Support Program during the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plan period（2006-2015）as well as Research on Supporting Technology for Drinking Water Source and Drinking Water Quality Standard and the Human Exposure to Precedence-controlled Pollutants in Water Environment integrated in specific research subjects of the 11th and 12th Five-Year Plan.

In 2015, the coverage rates of urban drinking water monitoring network at provincial, city and country levels were 100% ,94.8% and 94% respectively.