Studying the relationship between roots and soil is an important way to determine the fundamental reasons for ecological degradation in areas of riverside belt. Concentrating on the problem of ecosystem degradation in the Lijiang River, this paper explored the plant root distribution features of degraded ecosystems on the river-land ecotone. In the repair process, root distribution characteristics are an important basis for the characterization of different herbs' soil and water protection functions. Thus, there is an urgent need to carry out the study into the types of dominant herbaceous plant root distribution in different sites on the Lijiang River ecotone. This paper studied the root characteristics, such as root length density, specific root length and root biomass in different soil depths, and assessed the correlation between root characteristics and soil organic matter, total nitrogen and available phosphorus. This research was conducted on gentle slope, steep slope, middle bar and artificial bank slope from four typical site types on the river-land ecotone, which aimed to provide a scientific basis for vegetation restoration, vegetation configuration and material selection of fast greening plants during the process of ecological restoration. The result shows: Within each site type, the difference between specific root length in the 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm soil layer is not significant. From the 0-10 cm to 10-20 cm soil layer, the root length density and root biomass decreased in each site type, but the difference between the root length density and root biomass gradually decreased, which indicated that the effects of the terrain surface, types of plant and growth conditions on the distribution of root length density gradually decr eases with the increase insoil depth. The fine root and root biomass also decrease with the increase in soil depth. The difference in soil organic matter content is significant with the distribution being bank slope > steep slope > middle bar > gentle slope. The total nitrogen content relationship is bank slope > steep slope > gentle slope > middle bar, and the values separately are 3.12 g/kg, 2.33 g/kg, 1.56 g/kg and 1.32 g/kg, respectively. Soil total nitrogen and soil organic matter show a significant positive correlation. Since Lijiang River water has been affected by human activities for a long time, the available phosphorus content in the middle bar and gentle slope is much greater than that in the bank slope and steep slope. Root length density, specific root length and root biomass are positively correlated with organic matter and total nitrogen, and negatively correlated with available phosphorus. We can therefore draw the conclusion that with more soil roots, there is more organic matter and total nitrogen, and less available phosphorus. Fine root length and biomass have a significant positive correlation with root length density at 0.01 level (two tails), and show a negative correlation with root biomass density.