Josh Heitman

Bio

https://heitman.wordpress.ncsu.edu/
https://casm.cals.ncsu.edu

Soil is the interface between biological, atmospheric, and geologic systems. Movement of heat, water, and chemical in soil impacts the terrestrial environment at nearly every scale. Research efforts focus on understanding principles of this movement through laboratory and field experiments, development of new measurement techniques, and numerical modeling.
Major research goals are to detail soil water and energy budgets for evaporation and evapotranspiration, improve efficiency and services of agricultural, urban, and marginal soils, and develop theoretical frameworks and measurement systems to quantify soil processes.

Extension Publications

Publications

• A bimodal model for thermal conductivity as a function of matric potential incorporating adsorption and capillarity , Geoderma (2026)
• A potential stormwater management intervention: Compost incorporation improves infiltration rate and associated soil hydro-physical properties , PLoS ONE (2026)
• Artificial intelligence and digital sensing for multiscale soil structure: from observation to decision-making , Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (2026)
• Biocrusts regulate the phase transition between liquid water and ice within seasonally frozen soils in drylands , Journal of Hydrology (2026)
• Evaluation of diamond grinding slurry solids separation strategies and reuse as a soil amendment , Journal of Environmental Quality (2026)
• No-till maize system sustains water productivity by reducing evaporation and enhancing transpiration in Northeast China , Soil and Tillage Research (2026)
• Physics-constrained neural network modeling of soil thermal conductivity curve across full saturation , Journal of Hydrology (2026)
• Response of selected soil physical properties to various traffic loads at three field landscape positions , Soil Science Society of America Journal (2026)
• Rethinking Soils in Land Surface Models , Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (2026)
• Soil health indicator variability and management sensitivity across soils, bioregions, and agricultural systems , Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment (2026)