Nowadays, coal mining activities remain of great environmental concern because of several negative impacts on soil ecosystems. At the same time vegetation restoration in coal mining area is getting more and more concern in China. This study aimed at building a cost-saving and effective gangue platform vegetation allocation and conservation mode in the northwest arid desert area of China, plant community stability, system self-organization capacity, environmental carrying capacity and sustainable development capacity in the initial stage of vegetation restoration of gangue platform area were explored multi-dimensionally. Four types of vegetation allocation and conservation mode including arbor shrub grass (M₁), shrub grass (M₂), ornamental shrub grass (M₃), and shrub forest (M₄) in the gangue platform area were taken as the study objects. Artificial seeding of Caragana korshinskii, Artemisia sphaerocephala and Medicago sativa in the gangue platform without taking any conservation measures pattern was the near-natural restoration mode (CK, control). The community composition, species importance value, and species diversity changes of different vegetation disposition and conservation modes were analyzed using common ecological methods. The characteristics of vegetation community structure at the initial stage of restoration were also analyzed. The environmental and economic benefits of each mode system were calculated by emergy method. The results showed that: ① The plant species composition of the four plant disposition and conservation modes increased, presenting a high species diversity. Species diversity followed the order as M₃ > M₁ > M₂ > M₄ > CK. ② Purchased emergy dominated the emergy input structure. The utilization of renewable resources of the four modes was lower than that of CK (99.86%) and the utilization of non-renewable resources of M₁ was the highest (29.52%). ③ Compared with the emergy indicators of different vegetation configurations and conservation modes, M₁'s net emergy yield rate (EYR) and emergy self-sufficiency rate (ESR) were higher than others, which had the greatest advantage in production efficiency and a strong independent development ability. The emergy investment rate (EIR) and system sustainability index (EISD) of M₃ were higher than other modes, and the environmental load rate (ELR) was lower than other modes, indicating that M₃ had a high level of economic development and low dependence on the environment. The pressure generated was small and had a certain potential for sustainable development. ④ M₃ was the best mode in terms of community characteristic structure, system economic development level, dependence on the environment and sustainable development ability. M₁ was the optimal mode in terms of production efficiency and independent development ability.