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A dried soil layer (DSL) formed in the soil profile is a typical indication of soil drought caused by climate change and/or poor land management. The responses of a soil to drought conditions in water-limited systems and the impacts of plant characteristics on these processes are seldom known due to the lack of comparative data on soil water content (SWC) in the soil profile. The occurrence of DSLs can interfere in the water cycle in soil–plant–atmosphere systems by preventing water interchanges between upper soil layers and groundwater. Consequently, a DSL may limit the sustainability of environmental restoration projects (e.g., revegetation, soil and water conservation, etc.) on the Loess Plateau of China and in other similar arid and semiarid regions. In this study, we investigated and compared the impacts of soil type, land use and plant characteristics within each of the three climatic regions (arid, semiarid, semihumid) of the Loess Plateau. A total of 17,906 soil samples from 382 soil profiles were collected to characterize DSLs across the Plateau. Spatial patterns of DSLs (represented by four indices: (1) DSL thickness, DSLT; (2) DSL forming depth, DSLFD; (3) mean SWC within the DSL, DSL-SWC; and (4) stable field water capacity, SFC) differed significantly among the climatic regions, emphasizing the importance of considering climatic conditions when assessing DSL variations. The impact of land use on DSLs varied among the three climatic regions. In the arid region, land use had no significant effect on DSLs but there were significant effects in the semiarid and semihumid regions (P
