In recent years, global ecosystems have generally degraded, which not only directly threatens the stability of the support system for earth life, but also profoundly affects the sustainable development and well-being of human society. As a highly ecologically sensitive area with a high intensity of human disturbance and a fragile natural environment in China, Huozhou City urgently needs to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of ecosystem benefits to provide scientific guidance for the coordinated development of natural ecology and the social economy. In this study, numerical simulations were used as the core means, and a comprehensive evaluation system covering natural background indicators (land use structure, vegetation coverage, landscape fragmentation) and ecosystem service indicators (water yield, soil retention, carbon sequestration, habitat quality) was constructed to quantitatively assess the spatio-temporal evolution of comprehensive ecosystem benefits in Huozhou City from 2003 to 2023, and targeted ecological restoration strategies were proposed. The results showed that: (1) Farmland, construction land, and forests in Huozhou City increased from 2003 to 2023, mainly converted from grassland. The landscape fragmentation index increased by 0.002, while vegetation coverage decreased by 0.179. (2) Ecosystem services declined over the past 20 years, with water yield, soil conservation and the habitat quality index decreasing by 91.89 mm, 46.51 t hm(-2) and 0.081, respectively, while the range of variation in carbon sequestration was relatively small. (3) The comprehensive ecosystem benefit index (CEBI) declined significantly, from 0.354 in 2003 to 0.284 in 2023. The areas with high CEBI were located in the northeastern forest belts, while the low-value areas were distributed along the southwestern industrial and mining belts, which was in line with the direction of grid-based expansion of construction land. In the future, an ecological restoration strategy of "zonal restoration, industrial and mining constraints, and natural recovery" should be adopted in Huozhou City. This study will provide a quantitative scale and scientific reference for the restoration of high-pressure ecosystems caused by human activities.