Objectives This study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of various restoration measures on vegetation restoration in mining areas, in order to provide a foundation for the enhancement of vegetation restoration methodologies in arid regions.

Methods A typical case, the Kuermutu mining area of Altai Mountains Two-riversource Nature Reserve in Xinjiang was selected for this study. We investigated the plant community structure of eight mining sites under different restoration measures. The amounts, relative abundances and heights of each species were recorded in each randomly selected plot. Subsequently, the alpha diversity indices were calculated. Taking the original plant communities around the mine sites as references, the community similarities between the restoration and the reference sample plots were analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of different restoration measures, including soil covering, seed sowing, mud seed dressing and herding.

Results The species diversity of more than half of the restored plots was higher than that of the reference plots. The plots under soil covering, seed sowing, and mud seed dressing represented significant restoration effectiveness in terms of vegetation coverage. A strong positive correlation was identified between vegetation coverage with soil covering and mud seed dressing. A negative correlation was found between sowing measures and the discrepancy in species diversity indices between restoration and reference plots.

Conclusions The measures of seed dressing with mud and soil covering play a significant role in the restoration in terms of vegetation coverage. The measures of sowing and sheep stationing have been demonstrated to be effective in improving species diversity. It is suggested that in the future, the sowing measures be optimized by selecting the most suitable species of seed to enhance the effectiveness of the restoration process.