Drawing heavily upon the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an SDG–pressure–state–response (PSR)–ecological–economic–social (EES) model and an index system for wetland ecosystem health assessment were constructed from the three dimensions of environment, economy, and society. By using the Yinchuan Plain urban wetlands in the Yellow River Basin of China as a case study, their ecological health status from 2000 to 2020 was systematically evaluated by integrating information from remote sensing technology, geographic information technology, field sampling, information entropy (IE), a landscape index, and a Comprehensive Evaluation Index. The results show that the restoration and protection of wetland ecosystems have achieved remarkable results in the Yinchuan Plain. The wetland ecological health index has significantly increased from 0.26 to 0.67, which is an increase of 157.7%, and the health level increased from poor (II) to sub-healthy (IV). Factors restricting the healthy development of wetland ecology in the Yinchuan Plain include wetland construction, investment, population density, the number of tourists, and fertilizer use. The research results show that the wetland restoration and protection have achieved specific environmental, economic, and social results in the Yinchuan Plain. However, we also need to pay attention to increasing the investment in wetland environmental governance, strictly controlling the intensity of land use and the total amount of chemical fertilizer applied in various regions, scientifically carrying out wetland restoration and protection, reasonably coordinating the relationship between environment and society, and providing technical and decision-making support for wetland management and protection. This study provides a reference for the ecological governance and sustainable development of wetlands in large river basins worldwide.
The Yellow River Basin is an essential ecological barrier in China, but it is relatively underdeveloped. The human–land relationship needs to be coordinated, and the ecological environment is fragile, which seriously restricts the sustainable development of the urban agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin. In this study, a “five-dimensional integrated” comprehensive carrying capacity evaluation model is constructed using the five dimensions of water, land, ecology, monitoring, and early warning to evaluate its resource carrying capacity quantitatively. It constructs an early warning system of the resource carrying capacity based on the quantitative evaluation results and monitors the state of the resource carrying capacity. The results show that (1) seven major urban agglomerations’ populations, grain productions, and land are surplus, and 50.85% of prefecture-level cities have food surpluses regarding human–food relationships. (2) There are shortages in the urban agglomeration’s water resources and a deficit in the water resource carrying capacity. (3) The average ecological carrying capacity index is 0.519, indicating a state of ecological affluence. (4) The comprehensive resource carrying capacity is defined as level-three heavy-load conditions, while 67%, 22%, and 14% of cities have level-one, -two, and -three heavy-load conditions, respectively. This study can aid in the monitoring of the resource carrying status of the Yellow River Basin. These results provide a scientific basis for effectively restraining the utilization and development of natural resources in the Yellow River Basin. It can also provide a research paradigm for the world’s river basins, as well as the sustainable development of man and nature in the world.