Focusing on the major national strategies of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin, the coupling coordination degree and obstacle degree models were used to analyze and evaluate the evolution of the coupling coordination status and main obstacle factors of ecological protection and high-quality development in Shandong Province from 2009 to 2019, and to predict the development trend of coordination degree in the next four years by combining the GM(1,1) model. The results show that: the level of ecological protection and high-quality development generally showed a trend of gradual improvement during the study period, with the two alternately lagging behind each other; the degree of coupling and coordination continued to improve, and gradually evolved from “friction” to “coordination” with 2017 as the watershed year. The obstacles affecting the coordination of ecological protection and high-quality development vary, with the sub-system level focusing on the state of the ecological environment, economic and social response and economic operation, and indicators such as the proportion of wetland area, fertilizer application and new flood removal area must be paid attention to; the prediction model shows that the coordination of ecological protection and highquality development in Shandong Province will continue to improve in the next four years but at a slow pace. To this end, it is proposed to deeply understand the relationship between ecological protection and high-quality development, build a tripartite synergy mechanism among subjects, departments and policies, and strive to achieve a positive resonance between the two; and continue to increase ecological protection to create a new growth pole for high-quality development and play a leading role for the rest of the provinces in the Yellow River Basin.