Ecological Health Evaluation of Yellow River Irrigation Districts in Henan Province: A Case Study of the Zhaokou Irrigation District

Irrigation districts play a crucial role in guaranteeing agricultural production, and their ecological health and sustainable development are of great importance for regional economic and environmental security. Taking the Zhaokou irrigation district in Henan Province as the research object, this paper firstly constructs a health evaluation system consisting of 26 indicators from the perspective of a “nature–economy–society–ecology” composite system. Then, the fuzzy hierarchical comprehensive evaluation method and the ArcGIS spatial analysis technique are combined to systematically evaluate the ecological health status of the irrigation district and the spatial differentiation characteristics of its functional zoning. According to the findings of this paper, the overall health level of the Zhaokou irrigation district has a membership score of 0.495, which is at a “good” grade. However, some regions are inadequate in terms of environmental quality and water resources utilization. Zonal health evaluation shows that Shangqiu and Xuchang areas have the highest comprehensive health level (grade I), that the health level of Zhengzhou area is grade II, and that Kaifeng and Zhoukou areas, due to insufficient water-saving benefits and significant ecological constraints, have relatively low health levels (grades III–IV). Under the framework of functional zoning, the irrigation district is divided into three types, namely, ecological–water-saving–social composite areas, ecological–water-saving composite areas, and water-saving–social composite areas. Among them, the ecological–water-saving–social composite areas only account for 3.7%, so optimized transformation is pressing. The findings can provide references for the sustainable development and management of Yellow River irrigation districts in Henan Province, boosting the high-quality development of irrigation districts.