A bibliometric analysis of carbon exchange in global drylands

doi:10.1007/s40333-021-0112-3

Journal of Arid Land

2021, Vol. 13

Issue (11): 1089-1102 DOI: 10.1007/s40333-021-0112-3

Research article

A bibliometric analysis of carbon exchange in global drylands

LIU Zhaogang¹^,², CHEN Zhi¹^,²^,³^,^*(

), YU Guirui¹^,²^,³, ZHANG Tianyou⁴, YANG Meng¹^,²

¹Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
²College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
³Yanshan Earth Critical Zone and Surface Fluxes Research Station, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China
⁴College of Grassland Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China

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Abstract

Drylands refer to regions with an aridity index lower than 0.65, and billions of people depend on services provided by the critically important ecosystems in these areas. How ecosystem carbon exchange in global drylands (CED) occurs and how climate change affects CED are critical to the global carbon cycle. Here, we performed a comprehensive bibliometric study on the fields of annual publications, marked journals, marked institutions, marked countries, popular keywords, and their temporal evolution to understand the temporal trends of CED research over the past 30 a (1991-2020). We found that the annual scientific publications on CED research increased significantly at an average growth rate of 7.93%. Agricultural Water Management ranked first among all journals and had the most citations. The ten most productive institutions were centered on drylands in America, China, and Australia that had the largest number and most citations of publications on CED research. "Climate change" and climate-related (such as "drought", "precipitation", "temperature", and "rainfall") research were found to be the most popular study areas. Keywords were classified into five clusters, indicating the five main research focuses on CED studies: hydrological cycle, effects of climate change, carbon and water balance, productivity, and carbon-nitrogen-phosphorous coupling cycles. The temporal evolution of keywords further showed that the areas of focus on CED studies were transformed from classical pedology and agricultural research to applied ecology and then to global change ecological research over the past 30 a. In future CED studies, basic themes (such as "water", "yield", and "salinity") and motor themes (such as "climate change", "sustainability", and "remote sensing") will be the focus of research on CED. In particular, multiple integrated methods to understand climate change and ecosystem sustainability are potential new research trends and hotspots.

Key words： bibliometric analysis drylands carbon exchange climate change arid areas water resources sustainability

Received: 01 July 2021 Published: 10 November 2021

Corresponding Authors: CHEN Zhi (E-mail: chenz@igsnrr.ac.cn)

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	LIU Zhaogang
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Cite this article:

LIU Zhaogang, CHEN Zhi, YU Guirui, ZHANG Tianyou, YANG Meng. A bibliometric analysis of carbon exchange in global drylands. Journal of Arid Land, 2021, 13(11): 1089-1102.

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http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-021-0112-3 OR http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2021/V13/I11/1089

Table 1 Main information regarding the collection

Fig. 1 Annual scientific production of publications on carbon exchange in global dryland (CED) research (a) and mean number of citations per publication (b) from 1991 to 2020

Table 2 Top 20 most productive and cited journals with the publications of carbon exchange in global dryland (CED) during the period of 1991-2020

Fig. 2 Temporal trend of publications for the top five marked journals on CED research. (a), Agricultural Water Management; (b), Journal of Arid Environments; (c), Field Crops Research; (d), Agronomy Journal; (e), Agricultural and Forest Meteorology.

Table 3 Top ten most marked institutions

Fig. 3 Top ten most cited countries (a) and top ten most relevant countries by the corresponding authors (b) related to CED research

Fig. 4 Top 50 keywords represented by the wordcloud. Labels are usually single words, and the frequency of each label is shown with font size and colour.

Fig. 5 Co-occurrence network of the top 50 keywords. The size of the circle represents the frequency of the keyword; the larger the circle is, the higher the frequency. The lines between two circles indicate the relationships between two keywords; the thicker the line is, the closer the relationship between two keywords. Different colours represent different clusters, indicating that these keywords appear more frequently in the same publication. Red cluster, productivity; dark blue cluster, hydrological cycle; green cluster, effects of climate change; purple cluster, carbon and water balance; orange cluster, carbon-nitrogen-phosphorous coupling cycles.

Fig. 6 Temporal evolution of popular keywords in regard to CED studies. The horizontal axis indicates the time period, and boxes of different colors indicate different keywords. The size of each box represents the frequency during the time period. The lines between each box reflect the temporal evolution, transfer, and inheritance of keywords.

Table 4 Basic information of the thematic analysis on CED research


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