Climate change and vegetation restoration jointly drive soil water dynamics in arid and semiarid ecosystems. In China's Loess Plateau, large-scale afforestation with non-native species has often intensified soil desiccation due to elevated evapotranspiration. However, it remains unclear whether recent climatic shifts toward warmer and more humid conditions can counteract this drying effect. Using process-based Hydrus-1D modeling, we simulated long-term (1981-2020) soil water across the plateau. During the agricultural intensification period (1981-2000), declining precipitation and rising atmospheric aridity, combined with slowly increasing leaf area, led to severe soil water depletion at an average rate of -0.65 cm yr- 1 across 96.1% of the region. In the subsequent restoration phase (2001-2020), rapid vegetation expansion coincided with a reversal in hydroclimate: Precipitation and vegetation transpiration both increased, while atmospheric evaporative demand declined. These changes resulted in a net soil water recovery, at an average rate of +0.13 cm yr- 1, across 72.4% of the study area, even though vegetation growth reduced soil water in 68% of the region (average - 0.07 cm yr- 1). Attribution analysis, relative to a historic agriculture baseline, revealed that vegetation greening alone would have decreased soil water by 216%, but this was overwhelmingly offset by a 220% increase attributable to climate change (mainly through increased precipitation and decreased evaporative demand). Notably, the climatic influence strengthened substantially in the later period, outweighing vegetation-induced desiccation and yielding a net water gain. Our findings highlight a nonlinear interplay between climate and vegetation in regulating soil water balance. Sustainable land management in water-limited regions must therefore account for both ecological restoration goals and long-term hydrological sustainability