Mine water is both a valuable water resource of strategic significance and a significant hidden disaster factor. Its scientific protection and efficient utilization are crucial for ensuring coal mine safety production, promoting green and low-carbon transformation of the coal industry, and contributing to the national carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. Based on the demand for high-quality development in China's coal industry, this study focuses on the protection and utilization of coal mine water across its full life cycle. From the perspective of systems engineering, it clarifies the implications of full life-cycle management of mine water, namely, the comprehensive management model of "source reduction, process detoxification, end-stage resource recovery, and terminal reinjection," coordinating the entire process of mine water generation, migration, utilization, and recycling. By analyzing the current development status of protection and utilization technologies for mine water in China's coal mines across the four key stages, this study identifies key challenges such as lack of technological innovation, incomplete market mechanisms, and deficiency of well-established policy frameworks and technical standards. On this basis, a strategic framework for mine water resource protection and utilization is established, guided by resource, industrial, and ecological strategies. It proposes a governance approach of source control for efficiency enhancement, treatment processes for quality improvement, comprehensive reuse for value increment, and terminal disposal for environmental capacity expansion. Additionally, five major engineering systems are systematically deployed: core technology breakthroughs, full-chain demonstrations, market-oriented production‒use synergy, ecological safety support, and intelligent management platform development. This forms a coordinated promotion pattern driven by technological innovation, supported by engineering construction, secured by market operations, safeguarded by ecological safety, and empowered by smart management. Furthermore, development suggestions are proposed, including constructing a modern governance system, achieving breakthroughs in core technologies, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, improving standard evaluation systems, and strengthening collaborative governance mechanisms. These suggestions provide a systematic solution to support the coal industry's green transition and facilitate the transformation of mine water management from "wastewater management" to "strategic water resource utilization."