Waterworks automation is an indispensable part of modern water plants, but in practical application automation system is often turned to manual, which can not give full play to its due role. In this paper, the concept of minimized automatic water plant is put forward, and the system monitoring parameters are classified and discussed. According to the parameter level, equipment redundancy and timely maintenance are carried out to ensure the reliability of monitoring data and channels. At the same time, the automation system should be trained according to minimized operational automation, from the local control program to the central control program, to create a practical and effective water plant automation system for sustainable operation.