Abstract: The Yellow River basin is an important ecological security barrier in China. With the continuous strengthening of climate change and human interference, the contradiction between water supply and demand has become prominent and ecological problems have become prominent. Efficient ecological restoration is an important measure to promote ecological protection in the Yellow River basin. Combined with the characteristics and main problems of the Yellow River basin in different historical periods since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the three stages of continuous exploration and scientific management of the Yellow River basin were summarized, including "water and sediment regulation for controlling water disasters, water source conservation for controlling flow interruption, and system restoration for maintenance health". The ecological governance of the Yellow River basin had achieved good results through the three stages of key projects, but there were still challenges in the systematic restoration of the Yellow River basin. Based on the systematic thinking of ecological restoration, a systematic restoration framework was constructed including four aspects: the systematic nature of watershed ecological space, the systematic nature of ecological elements, the systematic nature of ecological product value, and the systematic nature of ecological supervision. Under the guidance of the systematic restoration framework, the following suggestions were proposed to provide ideas for high-level protection: 1)Based on the site conditions of the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yellow River basin, carrying out systematic restoration and governance, implementing policies by different regions, to improve the overall ecological service supply capacity of the basin; 2) Adhering to the life community of mountains, rivers, forests, fields, lakes, grass and sand, carrying out systematic management and optimizing the allocation of ecological elements; 3) Promoting the formation of a composite system for the value transformation of ecological products under ecological restoration, which was coordinated from five dimensions: natural resources, restoration subjects, restoration modes, restoration spaces, and value chains; 4) With the goal of restoring the dominant ecological function, establishing a comprehensive and systematic regulatory system for the ecological restoration process in the Yellow River basin.