Multifractal Characterization of Soil Pore Shapes in Aggregates.

Two dimensional (2-D) images representing pores and solids are used for direct quantification of soil structure using tools that are sensitive to the spatial arrangement of pores or by grouping pores by morphological properties such as shape and size. Pore shapes and sizes are related and have been used to interpret soil processes. Fractal and multifractal methods of pore characterization have been applied separately to spatial arrangement of soil pores and to pore size distributions derived from 2-D images. The objective of this work was to estimate fractal dimensions of spatial arrangement of soil pores of predetermined shape. Images of soil aggregates with average mass ranging from 2.2 and 5.5 grams from three soil types and two management types were analyzed. Pore shape was classified using a shape factor S that quantifies the circularity of pores (S=1 for circular pores). Images containing only pores with S values smaller than 0.1, between 0.1 and 0.2, 0.2 and 0.5, 0.5 and 0.7 and greater than 0.7 were derived from the initial images and analyzed with a multifractal algorithm. The various fractal dimensions were related to fractal dimensions derived from water retention data.