Soil Pore Network Complexity Changes Induced by Wetting and Drying Cycles—A Study Using X-ray Microtomography and 3D Multifractal Analyses

Jocenei A. T. de Oliveira, Fábio A. M. Cássaro, Adolfo N. D. Posadas and Luiz F. Pires ()
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Jocenei A. T. de Oliveira: Laboratory of Physics Applied to Soils and Environmental Sciences, State University of Ponta Grossa, Ponta Grossa 84030-900, PR, Brazil
Fábio A. M. Cássaro: Laboratory of Physics Applied to Soils and Environmental Sciences, State University of Ponta Grossa, Ponta Grossa 84030-900, PR, Brazil
Adolfo N. D. Posadas: AgriEntech Ltda, São Carlos 13560-460, SP, Brazil
Luiz F. Pires: Laboratory of Physics Applied to Soils and Environmental Sciences, State University of Ponta Grossa, Ponta Grossa 84030-900, PR, Brazil

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 17, 1-17

Abstract: Soils are dynamic and complex systems in their natural state, which are subjected to profound changes due to management. Additionally, agricultural soils are continuously exposed to wetting and drying (W-D) cycles, which can cause modifications in the complexity of their pores. Thus, we explore how successive W-D cycles can affect the pore network of an Oxisol under contrasting managements (conventional tillage—CT, minimum tillage—MT, no tillage—NT, and secondary forest—F). The complexity of the soil pore architecture was evaluated using a 3D multifractal approach combined with lacunarity, Shannon’s entropy, and pore geometric parameters. Our results showed that the multifractal approach effectively identified and quantified the changes produced in the soil pore architecture by the W-D cycles. The lacunarity curves revealed important aspects of the modifications generated by these cycles. Samples under F, NT, and MT suffered the most significant changes. Pore connectivity and tortuosity were largely affected by the cycles in F and NT. Our findings demonstrated that the 3D geometric parameters and normalized Shannon’s entropy are complementary types of analysis. According to the adopted management, they allowed us to separate the soil into two groups according to their similarities (F and NT; CT and MT).

Keywords: 3D geometric parameters; generalized fractal dimension; conservation agriculture; no-tillage system; soil structure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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