This study introduces landscape structure indices into the ecological assessment system of riparian health, taking advantage of remote sensing capabilities in the derivation of riparian zone, feature extraction of ecological structure, and high-precision classification of ecological system. An overall ecological investigation and assessment of riparian health along Huaihe River was carried out from the aspects of ecological function, ecosystem structure and ecological stress. The results showed that the health of riparian ecology along Huaihe River was generally poor, with an ecological health index less than 0.3. A significant spatial characteristic was shown that the ecological environment gradually became worse from upstream to midstream and then slightly improved. Intensive human development, low vegetation coverage, low natural shoreline rate and high human disturbance were identified as the main cause of the bad ecological condition of the riparian zone along Huaihe River, according to the analysis of ecological and environmental problems.