Exploring the effects of the vegetation on passive tracer transport by using the multifractal analysis

Multifractal turbulence formalism has been used to describe the time series in simulated passive tracer transport in a vegetated open-channel, phenomenon characterized by a high temporal non-linear variability. A study of the empirical statistical moments scaling function for several scale ratios reveals the presence of a multifractal phase transition associated with one critical moment. The parameters of the universal multifractal model have been estimated using the double trace moment method. The theoretical statistical moments scaling was simulated by using the universal multifractal model showing an acceptable agreement with the corresponding empirical function. The universal multifractal parameters estimated here have different values to those reported for obstacle-free phenomena such as the atmospheric turbulence and passive scalar transport in turbulent oceanic flows. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.