Water ecological products were an important carrier of China's ecological civilization construction and the "two mountains" theory in water resources management. Valuing water ecological products and analyzing their spatiotemporal evolution were crucial for the sustainable water resource utilization and high-quality economic development. This paper took the Yangtze River Economic Belt as a case study. Based on the accounting of the value of water ecological products from 2014 to 2022, we employed the spatial Gini coefficient, Moran's index, and standard deviation ellipse method to explore its spatiotemporal evolution through a three-dimensional "Distribution-Agglomeration- Transformation" framework. It was found that: (1) The value of water ecological products in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2014 to 2022 was high, but there were large inter-provincial differences. The overall spatial distribution of the value accounting results was characterized by "upstream>midstream>downstream", with Sichuan having the highest value while Shanghai having the lowest one. The value accounting results of components exhibited differentiated characteristics in the order of "regulation services>material supply>cultural services" generally. (2) A positive spatial correlation existed in the value of water ecological products and the value of regulating services in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, while no spatial autocorrelation was observed in the value of material supply and the value of cultural services. The value of water ecological products exhibited positive resource endowment externalities, with the upper and middle Yangtze River reaches, which had better water resource endowment, showing predominant "high-high" agglomeration. However, the policy spillover effects were not significant. Although many policy measures had been implemented in the lower Yangtze River reaches, the value of water ecological products was still mainly characterized by "low-low" agglomeration. (3) The center of gravity of the value of water ecological products in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, especially the center of gravity of the value of regulating services, had significant spatial deviation from the economy, population, and geography centers of gravity, and exhibited obvious resource mismatch. Accordingly, this paper proposed three policy measures-differentiated regulation, synergistic governance, and feedback transformation-to realize sustainable water resource use, high-quality economic development and coordinated ecological-economic adaptation in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.