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Reclamation following anthropogenic disturbance often aims to restore stable soils that support productive and diverse native plant communities. Land reclamation regulations dictate the re-spread soil depths and grades as well as seed mixes, vegetation production standards and timelines. The soil re-spread process increases soil compaction, which may alter soil water, plant composition, rooting depths and soil organic matter. This may have a direct impact on vegetation establishment and species recruitment over time. Our objectives were to 1) evaluate the above and belowground vegetation patterns, 2) quantify changes in soil compaction, and 3) evaluate patterns of soil water across a 40-year reclamation gradient. We hypothesized that both alpha and beta diversity would increase and soil compaction would decrease with time since reclamation. Further, plant community patchiness and soil water heterogeneity would increase over the 40-year reclamation gradient. Species composition and root depth, soil compaction, water content, and organic matter were recorded at 19 reclaimed and one native reference site in central North Dakota mixed-grass prairie. We determined the small scale dissimilarity of vegetation along with the average patch size and the highest mean dissimilarity between patches using dissimilograms based on the relative S?rensen dissimilarity index in PC-ORD 6.0. We used the gompertz equation and a non-linear regression using IBM- SPSS v: 21 to determine a 90% patch size within the landscape. Soil compaction, rooting depths and organic matter data was analyzed using a non-linear regression model. We rejected our hypothesis as alpha and beta diversity stayed steady over the 40 year reclamation gradient. This indicates that there is a lack of native species recruitment and establishment on the reclaimed mine sites. Relative plant community patch size and soil health on reclaimed lands over four decades will indicate the landscape-level success of the current ecosystem-based reclamation strategy.