This paper puts forward the problems existing in the conventional drinking water treatment and expounds the necessary of improving drinking water treatment based on the present water pollution situation and the more stringent water quality standard. According to the existing economic and technical condition in our country, strengthen the conventional drinking water treatment should be done in advance. Besides, adding the pretreatment and depth treatment into the water treatment process is also necessary in the future. For the technology of pretreatment, biological pretreatment technology is the worthiest to study. For improving the conventional drinking water treatments, study the morphology and kinetics mechanism of coagulation is very necessary. For the technology of depth treatment, the activated carbon and biological activated carbon technology will be the main development trend.