This study compares two widely used approaches for modeling soil moisture (SM) infiltration in mesoscale hydrology: the one-dimensional Richards equation (1-D RE), which controls vertical flux exchange but is complex and nonlinear, and the infiltration capacity (IC) scheme, which is simpler and only allows downward SM movement. The challenge in implementing the RE lies in determining effective parameters at the targeted resolution (typically several hundred to thousands of meters), as the RE is inherently nonlinear and developed for much finer scales than those used in typical simulations. To address this, an experiment was conducted using the mHM model equipped with Multiscale Parameter Regionalization (MPR) to parameterize both the RE and IC approaches. The RE parameterization involved the use of three distinct pedo-transfer functions (PTFs). The parameters were estimated across 201 basins in Germany and validated with streamflow data at multiple resolutions, along with SM observations from 46 sites (0-25 cm depth) and 42 sites (25-60 cm and 0-60 cm depths). Results show that mHM-IC and all mHM-RE variants perform comparably well in predicting streamflow. The application of MPR facilitates the transferability of PTF parameters across different scales and areas. Due to its two-way flow mechanism, the mHM-RE variant shows better predictability of SM, especially in deeper soil layers. Although the IC approach frequently leads to saturation in deeper soil layers, it still provides excellent predictability for SM anomalies. This study suggests that appropriate RE parameterization can generate transferable parameters and achieve good results in simulating streamflow and other state variables.