[Objective] The objectives of the study are to analyze the changes in soil nutrients with vegetation recovery in order to understand and evaluate the functional restoration of vegetation ecosystem, and to adjust speed the vegetation succession and accelerate the ecological recovery.[Methods] Three ecological restoration patterns, natural grassland(grazing forbidden), farmland(fallow) and planted alfalfa(returning to forest and grassland), were investigated to analyze the influence of ecological restoration on soil nutrients.[Results] The natural grassland has bigger effects than farmland then followed by planted alfalfa on soil. As the soil depth increased, all soil nutrients decreased. With the time of recovery, soil nutrients gradually accumulated. The soil fertility index in alfalfa fields was lower than that in farmland and increased in the early period of recovery and then declined with time.[Conclusion] Vegetation recovery in the loess hilly region in Ningxia would obviously increase the contents of soil nutrients and improve the fertility of soil. But alfalfa, which was extensively managed on dry fields(no fertilizer applied but only mowing), would seriously decrease soil fertility.