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Vegetation root distribution is one of the factors that determine the overall water holding capacity of the land surface and the relative rates of water extraction from different soil layers for vegetation transpiration. Despite its importance, significantly different root distributions are used by different land surface models. Using a comprehensive global field survey dataset, vegetation root distribution (including rooting depth) has been developed here for three of the most widely used land cover classifications i.e., the Biosphere–Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS), International Geosphere–Biosphere Program (IGBP), and version 2 of the Simple Biosphere Model (SiB2) for direct use by any land model with any number of soil layers.
Xubin Zeng (2001) studied this question.