ObjectiveThe Yellow River Delta, a typical ecological fragile area, faces prominent landscape ecological risk (LER) due to multiple factors. Systematic understanding of landscape risk is crucial for optimizing landscape patterns and effectively addressing ecological challenges.MethodsTaking Dongying, a typical city of the Yellow River Delta, as the study area to construct an assessment framework, which consists of two parts, one containing the ecosystem service value and the other the probability of landscape ecological damage in terms of 'stress-vulnerability-resilience'. The ESDA and Geographic detector were used to explore the spatial heterogeneity and influencing factors of LER at the grid scale.Results1) The average value of LER in Dongying was 0.15, generally showed a spatial pattern of high in the north and east, and low in the middle and southwest. The total value of ecosystem services was about 3 175.99 billion yuan, Which was lower than the GDP of that year, and the economic growth was unsustainable. The ecosystem service value showed a pattern of gradual diminution from the north and eastern coast to the southwest part. The probability of ecological damage was 0.43, showing a pattern of staggered distribution of high and low in the north and east, relatively balanced in the center and southwest. 2) The LER showed a significant clustering in spatial distribution, with a global Moran's I index of 0.747. In terms of agglomeration zoning, the HH risk agglomeration area accounted for 32.48% of the area of the risk zone, which was mainly distributed in the continuous distribution zone formed by the coastal zone in the north and east of Dongying. 3) The LER of Dongying was mainly dominated by factors of socio-economic foundation and environmental location conditions. In the citywide area, the determinant degree of coastline distance was 0.43, which was the primary factor dominating the urban LER. In contrast, in the urban area, the determinant degreee of population density was 0.38, which was the primary factor influencing the urban LER.ConclusionsThis study enriches the LER assessment method theoretically, and provides an empirical support for ecological protection and risk management in the Yellow River Delta.