As a typical eco-fragile region crossing northern China, the Yellow River Basin has complex and diverse ecological problems and is in urgent need of comprehensive ecological governance and restoration. Meanwhile, the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin is one of the current development strategies in China. In order to achieve sustainable development of the Yellow River, it is necessary to identify the existing ecological problems, and then carry out regional ecological restoration and comprehensive management. Therefore, grasping the regional differences of the natural conditions in the Yellow River Basin, carrying out comprehensive ecological risk identification and evaluation, and clarifying the spatial heterogeneity distribution and characteristics of regional ecological risks are key points to serve regional ecological restoration and promote high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin. Ecological risk assessment as a method to quantify complex ecological risks can provide decision makers with quantification and visualization of risk scenarios. This paper takes the middle reaches of the Yellow River Basin-Loess Plateau area as the study area. We identify risk sources by combining multiple natural background conditions such as climate, topography and vegetation in the middle reaches of the Yellow River Basin. A regional ecological risk assessment system serving the ecological protection and restoration through Google Earth Engine and GIS platforms has been established to analyze the spatial heterogeneity of various types of ecological risks and clarify the main causes of ecological risks by the method of spatial correlation. The results show that:1) Four categories of ecological risk factors spatially clearly reflect regional issues. The spatial distribution of ecological risk in the study area has significantly regional characteristics. Firstly, there is a significant difference in ecological risk between the southeast and northwest of the study area. Secondly, there are differences in ecological risks under different land cover types. Thirdly, there are also significant differences in ecological risk between anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic zones. Finally, there are also differences between riverine and non-riverine shores. 2) In terms of the spatial distribution of the four categories of ecological risk factors, the net ecosystem productivity of vegetation shows characteristics of high in the southeast and low in the northwest. The temperature vegetation dryness index shows that there is a higher risk of drought in northwestern areas, Shanxi and southern Shaanxi. The soil erosion risk mainly exists along the Yellow River, other river valley areas and in the northwestern area. The services of windbreak and sand fixation is higher in mountainous areas and areas with better vegetation condition in Shanxi Province. 3) The comprehensively ecological risk assessment shows that most areas in Ningxia and northern Shaanxi are in the high-risk status, and the low-risk areas are mainly located in the southwestern study area and along the western Shanxi Province. 4) The bivariate Moran index explains the spatial drivers of ecological risk, which shows that surface temperature, vegetation condition and flood season precipitation are the main causes of the differences of comprehensive ecological risk between the northwestern and southeastern parts of the study area, and slope is the main reason for the regional difference in ecological risks.