Large-scale vegetation restoration on the Loess Plateau effectively controls soil erosion but causes deep soil desiccation. Existing studies often treat the dry soil layer (DSL) as a uniform vertical column. This may obscure true deep soil recharge pathways. This study used Hydrus-3D to simulate daily soil water fluxes in a 60 m & times; 5 m & times; 4 m hillslope plot on the Loess Plateau from 2004 to 2020 (a total of 6020 days) under four land-cover types: exotic shrub (Caragana korshinskii), exotic grass (Medicago sativa), natural grass and arable crop (Vigna radiata or Setaria italica). Exotic grass led the most significant depletion in the 0-4 m soil layer, reducing mean soil water content to 11.73%, which was higher than exotic shrub (12.99%), arable crop (15.00%), and natural grass (15.45%). Consequently, the DSL under exotic grass endured for 5719 days (95%) and peaked at 894 m(3) (74.5%), whereas under exotic shrub it lasted 3267 days (54%) and reached 845 m(3) (70.4%). In contrast, the DSL under arable crop and natural grass were brief (117 and 100 days, respectively) and limited in volume (187 and 73 m(3)). Seasonal DSL volume changes averaged 293 m(3) yr(-1) for exotic grass and 231 m(3) yr(-1) for exotic shrub, but <30% of these fluctuations were associated with vertical wetting of the DSL core; instead, 70-80% of infiltrated water moved laterally through the 1-2 m wide edge area surrounding the DSL soil core. As a result, DSL thickness remained virtually unchanged while volume contracted by up to 479 m(3) (exotic grass) and 349 m(3) (exotic shrub) within a single wet season; contractions under arable crop and natural grass were < 60 m(3). These results demonstrate that lateral water redistribution along DSL edge-not vertical infiltration into the DSL soil core-dominates seasonal DSL dynamics under both exotic species. These findings demonstrate that lateral redistribution dominates DSL seasonal dynamics. Sustainable vegetation management requires optimizing patch spacing to maximize this lateral recharge mechanism.