Abstract: Ecological welfare performance serves as a novel indicator for gauging regional green development, and is pivotal for scrutinizing the spatial distribution and variability characteristics of urban ecological welfare performance to facilitate zoning planning and management of urban ecological resources. Drawing upon input-output theory and incorporating undesired outputs of environmental pollution, we assessed the ecological welfare performance of cities within the Yangtze River Economic Belt utilizing the super-efficient SBM model. Subsequently, we analyzed its spatial distribution characteristics and conducted modeling analysis on the spatial variability. Our findings revealed that : (1)The ecological welfare performance of cities within the Yangtze River Economic Belt witnessed a significant increase of 33.3% since the inception of the development plan in 2016. (2)There existed a pronounced spatial clustering trend in ecological welfare performance among the cities, and is particularly notable in the marked enhancement in overall performance observed in the Yangtze River Delta region. (3)The spatial correlation range of urban ecological welfare performance gradually diminished over time, while the degree of variability remained relatively stable. Hence, it is imperative to reinforce ecological environmental governance to sustain the upward trajectory of performance. Drawing from the aforementioned conclusions, we propose countermeasures that focus on ecological environmental governance, ecological resource allocation and mechanism construction, and inter-city cooperation.