Rapid urbanization areas are significant regions for economic growth, social progress, and population aggregation. However, they face severe ecological risks due to drastic changes in land use, large-scale urban construction, population concentration, and resource consumption in the process of urbanization. Conducting research on ecological risk assessment and management control is crucial for regional ecological civilization construction and high-quality development. Therefore, in this paper, the society-ecology system framework is introduced to explain the formation mechanism of ecological risk, and an ecological risk assessment framework based on "endogenous-exogenous-control" is constructed, the spatial and temporal characteristics of ecological risk in Jiangsu Province from 2000 to 2020 were measured based on multi-source data. In the end, the paper considers the current situation and changing trend of ecological risk, and puts forward regional ecological risk prevention and management strategies. The research findings are as follows: (1) The theory of the social-ecological system is helpful in deepening the understanding of ecological risks in rapid urbanization areas. Based on the characteristics of complex sources, multi-receptor, and diverse expression of ecological risk in rapid urbanization areas, an analytical framework of ecological risk integrating "endogenous-exogenous-control" was constructed, it can play an active role in the diagnosis and management of ecological risks in the rapid urbanization areas. (2) In the past 20 years, the endogenous and exogenous ecological risks in Jiangsu Province were increased, while the controlled ecological risks were slightly decreased. The integrated ecological risk was characterized by "high in the south and low in the north, high in the west and low in the east", the high-value areas are mainly located in economically developed, densely populated urban centres and environmentally sensitive areas, and the risks have generally increased, the low-value areas were mainly distributed in the water wetland, the suburbs of big cities, and the areas along the main traffic routes. (3) In the ecological risk types in Jiangsu Province during the study period, the percentages of continuously decreasing, fluctuating decreasing, stabilizing, fluctuating increasing, and continuously increasing were 18.79%, 2.96%, 57.95%, 15.88% and 4.41%, respectively. Based on this, the ecological risk management and control zones can be divided into five categories: ecological risk emergency management and control zones, strict management and control zones, dynamic regulation zones, preventive management zones, and sensitive monitoring zones, and the proportion of each area was 12.05%, 2.19%, 64.42%, 16.11%, 5.22%, respectively. In a word, this study provides a new perspective and method for analyzing and assessing ecological risks in rapid urbanization areas and also provides a reference for ecological risk management in rapid urbanization areas.