Abstract: The Yangtze River holds a strategic position in both socio-economic development and ecological environmental protection in China. The Water Ecological Environmental Protection Planning for Key River Basins is guideline for local governments at all levels to carry out water ecological environmental protection and restoration practices in the 14th Five-Year Plan period; it is also a powerful tool to promote continued improvement of water ecological environment. Both major indicators and key tasks were considered, a combination of quantitative and qualitative evaluation methods were used to objectively assess implementation of the planning in the Yangtze River basin. The 11 major indicators for the Yangtze River basin specified in the planning are found to be generally progressing smoothly. Three expected indicators (assessment of aquatic biological integrity index, restoration of river and lake ecological buffer zones, and the number of water bodies reproducing indigenous aquatic plants), however, lag behind expected timeline. Key tasks proposed in the planning have been pushed forward steadily, but there are still outstanding problems (unstable improvements in water environment quality in some regions, weak links in the standard of water environmental governance, lack of continuous efforts in water ecological protection, unresolved water resource constraints in some areas, high pressure on preventing water environmental risks, and incomplete mechanism for ensuring the planning’s effective implementation). Some countermeasures to strengthen assessment of planning objectives, to deepen collaborative governance system of “three-water overall planning”, and to promote systematic protection of key river basins are suggested. This study provides ideas and references for the preparation of the 15th Five-Year Plan period for water ecological environmental protection in the Yangtze River basin.