3D multifractal characterization of computed tomography images of soils under different tillage management: Linking multifractal parameters to physical properties

Multifractal analysis of pore images obtained from X-ray computed tomography (CT) was used to characterizethe scaling properties of macropores in soils with different managements and their correspondence with mac-roscopic physical properties related with the soil functions.We used CT images of twenty undisturbed soil columns to examine the multifractal properties of the poresidentified by X-ray computed tomography (CT-Porosity). Multifractal spectra successfully describe the scaling ofthe pore network in all soil columns. The dimensions and scaling parameters of these spectra correlate withmacroscopic magnitudes, namely, CT-Porosity, surface area of the pore walls, tortuosity, and bulk density. Wealso found strong correlations between the singularity spectra and the topological descriptors of the pore net-work skeleton: total slab voxels, number of branches per path, number of endpoints and sum of branch length,among others. These correlations show that the complexity of the CT-Porosity can be related quantitatively withphysical properties, the organization of the pore skeleton and solute transport