The development of digital technology and the emergence of a new digital quality productivity, based on this technology, offer new opportunities to advance the governance of river chiefs, which play a significant role in watershed environmental management. This paper, based on the specific practice of embedding digital technology in the river chief system, takes the water management entities and their relationships, along with data and other governance resources, as the research objects. The study finds that embedding digital technology into the river chief system for collaborative water management helps achieve seamless “horizontal and vertical” information flow within administrative organizations, promotes positive interactions between government and society, as well as government and enterprises, forming a holistic government. From the perspective of the “actor-resource” framework, the paper suggests that the party and government entities should play a strategic leadership role and integrate market and social forces to further enhance foundational application systems and smart management frameworks, remove barriers to data flow, and ultimately achieve “digital empowerment” and “data empowerment.“ This would build a “data-integrated, cohesive, and efficient” smart water management system.