Drinking water is a strategically important natural resource. At the same time, its resource is unevenly distributed over the territory of Russia. One way to redistribute drinking water resources is to bottle and then deliver it to scarce regions. The study’s objectives are to identify gaps in the system of drinking water resource management in Russia. Particular attention is paid to the management of the quality of bottled water. The study showed that despite the strategic importance of drinking water for citizens' health, its quality is not managed at the systemic level. Bottled water is food, and, accordingly, its quality should be standardized for food safety. However, quality regulation is carried out non-systemically and fragmentarily. The identified problems also include the problem of identifying waters and the fight against counterfeit products. The methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparative method, statistical data were used.