Context The construction of green mines and the development of green mining are a strong embodiment of the implementation of the scientific outlook on development and the construction of ecological civilization, and soil water content, as one of the important indicators of soil monitoring, is of great significance to mine ecological restoration. Objectives By obtaining the spatio-temporal dynamic change data of vegetation coverage, surface temperature and soil water content in Shendong mining area in the past 15 years, this study analyzed the ecological restoration status of Shendong mining area in recent years, enriched the ecological restoration database of Shendong mining area, and provided theoretical basis for better development of green mining area in the next step. Methods This paper selects Shendong mining area as the research object, analyzes the normalized vegetation index (NDVI) and the dynamic distribution characteristics of land surface temperature (LST) in the study area based on the MODIS data from 2006 to 2021,constructs the corresponding vegetation index-surface temperature characteristic space and calculates the temperature vegetation drought index, verifies the soil moisture data of field sampling points, and further analyzes the spatial distribution of soil water content in Shendong mining area combined with hot spot analysis. Results The results showed that: (1) The annual average value of NDVI showed a growth trend during 2006~2021, with a range of 0.253016~0.374517, and the NDVI decreased by 8.27% in 2021 compared with 2019, to 0.343557. In terms of spatial distribution, the NDVI value of Shendong mining area was high in the middle and low on both sides. (2) Inverting the surface temperature results, it can be seen that the LST value in Shendong mining area showed a trend of first decreasing and then increasing, and reached the maximum surface temperature in recent years in 2021, which was 39.764234°C. (3) The TVDI value increased from 0.472038 in 2006 to 0.638168 in 2021, and grew slowly in 2006~2016, from 0.472038 in 2006 to 0.503971 in 2016; it was rapid growth in 2016~2021, with a growth rate of 26.63%.