Abstract: As ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin have become a major national strategy, this article aims to explore new pathways for achieving these objectives.Initially, it reviews the status of water resources, land resources, and economic development, as well as the industrial structure within the Yellow River Basin.The review reveals some challenges, including a weak ecological environment and difficulties in coordinating the industrial structure.Strengthening environmental coordination within the basin has emerged as a significant trend.Subsequently, an indicator evaluation system was developed, focusing on two dimensions: economic efficiency and ecological governance.The results indicate that the comprehensive evaluation scores of most provinces have shown an upward trend in recent years, suggesting that efforts towards ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin have yielded positive outcomes.Notably, Shandong and Henan have achieved higher overall scores; however, there remains a substantial gap compared to provinces such as Qinghai and Gansu.This disparity is primarily influenced by challenges in industrial coordination and the fragile state of the ecological environment.Finally, a brief analysis is presented regarding potential collaborative pathways for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin.Key strategies include enhancing collaboration among multi-level, multi-professional, and multi-basin-wide entities; promoting integrated environmental management across the basin; breaking down information barriers through resource integration; implementing the "Yellow River Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China" to establish cohesive ecological governance via river basin legislation; and leveraging advanced technologies such as big data, blockchain, and cloud computing to create an environmental cloud platform for the Yellow River Basin, thereby facilitating both ecological protection and high-quality development.