A novel bibliometric and visual analysis of global geoscience research using landscape indices

Abstract

The landscape index is a quantitative index which reflects characteristics of structure composition and spatial pattern in landscape studies, it is, therefore, expected to describe the spatial pattern of scientific research in bibliometric analysis. In this study, a novel attempt to regard scientific research as a kind of ‘landscape’ was made, and landscape indices were improved for bibliometric analysis to measure the spatial pattern of scientific research. For illustrating the feasibility of our method, global geoscience research from 1994 to 2018 was presented as a case. Moreover, spatiotemporal migration of landscape centroids was visualized. The results indicated that global geoscience publications increased steadily and articles were highly concentrated at the country level. The top 10 countries published 69.93% of total articles and 84.68% of geoscience articles were from top 20 productive countries. The spatial migration of centroids was mainly reflected in the longitude because of significant increasing of articles in eastern countries, especially in China with the growth rate of 747.14%. At the patch scale, the change trend of improved landscape indices verified the spatiotemporal changes of global distribution of geoscience articles. At the landscape scale, the strengthening of global international collaboration is the main driving forces of spatial heterogeneity of global geoscience research. This study is expected to help readers to understand global trends of geoscience research in the past 25 years, and to promote the development of bibliometric analysis towards the directions of spatialization and visualization.

Keywords

geoscience / landscape index / visualization / Geographical Information System / bibliometric analysis

References

[1] Ahlgren P, Persson O, Tijssen R (2013). Geographical distance in bibliometric relations within epistemic communities. Scientometrics, 95(2): 771–784

[2] Allen R S (2001). Interdisciplinary Research: a literature-based examination of disciplinary intersections using a common tool, geographic information system (GIS). Sci Tech Libr, 21(3–4): 191–209

[3] Azer S A (2017). Top-cited articles in problem-based learning: a bibliometric analysis and quality of evidence assenssment. J Dent Educ, 81(4): 458–478

[4] Azer S A, Azer S (2019). Top-cited articles in medical professionalism: a bibliometric analysis versus altmetric scores. BMJ Open, 9(7): e029433

[5] Azer S A, Azer S (2018). What can we learn from top-cited articles in inflammatory bowel disease? A bibliometric analysis and assessment of the level of evidence. BMJ Open, 8(7): e021233

[6] Batty M (2003). The geography of scientific citation. Environ Plan, 35(5): 761–765

[7] Bonaccorsi A, Daraio C (2005). Exploring size and agglomeration effects on public research productivity. Scientometrics, 63(1): 87–120

[8] Bornmann L, Waltman L (2011). The detection of “hot regions” in the 515 geography of science—a visualization approach by using density maps. J Informetrics, 5(4): 547–553

[9] Carvalho R, Batty M (2006). The geography of scientific productivity: scaling in U.S. computer science. J Stat Mech, 2006(10): P10012

[10] Chen C, Jia Z, Wu S, Tong X, Zhou W, Chen R, Zhang C (2017). A bibliometric review of Chinese studies on the application of landscape connectivity. Acta Ecol Sin, 37: 3243–3255

[11] Chen W, Xiao D, Li X (2002). Classification, application, and creation of landscape indices. Acta Ecol Sin, 13(1): 121–125 (in Chinese)

[12] Egghe L (2006). Theory and practice of the g-index. Scientometrics, 69(1): 131–152

[13] Frame J D, Francis N, Mark P C (1977). The distribution of world science. Soc Stud Sci, 7(4): 400–400

[14] Frenken K, Hardeman S, Hoekman J (2009). Spatial scientometrics: towards a cumulative research program. J Informetrics, 3(3): 222–232

[15] Hassan S U P, Haddawy (2013). Measuring international knowledge flows and scholarly impact of scientific research. Scientometrics, 94(1): 163–179

[16] He H S, Dezonia B E, Mladenoff D J (2000). An aggregation index (AI) to quantify spatial patterns of landscapes. Landsc Ecol, 15(7): 591–601

[17] Hengl T, Minasny B, Gould M (2009). A geostatistical analysis of geostatistics. Scientometrics, 80(2): 491–514

[18] Hersperger A M, Bürgi M (2009). Going beyond landscape change description: quantifying the importance of driving forces of landscape change in a Central Europe case study. Land Use Policy, 26(3): 640–648

[19] Hirsch J E (2010). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output that takes into account the effect of multiple co-authorship. Scientometrics, 85(3): 741–754

[20] Li H B, Wu J G (2004). Use and misuse of landscape indices. Landsc Ecol, 19(4): 389–399

[21] Li J X, Wang Y J, Shen X H, Song Y C (2004a). Landscape pattern analysis along on urban-rural gradient in the Shanghai metropolitan region. Acta Ecol Sin, 24(9): 1973–1980

[22] Li L, Liu Y, Zhu H, Ying S, Luo Q, Luo H, Kuai X, Xia H, Shen H (2017). A bibliometric and visual analysis of global geo-ontology research. Comput Geosci, 99: 1–8

[23] Li X Z, Bu R C, Chang Y (2004). The response of landscape metrics against pattern scenarios Acta Ecol Sin, 24(1): 123–134

[24] Liu Y, Lu Y H, Fu B J (2011). Implication and limitation of landscape metrics in delineating relationship between landscape pattern and soil erosion. Acta Ecol Sin, 31(1): 267–275

[25] Liu F, Lin A, Wang H, Peng Y, Hong S (2016). Global research trends of geographical information system from 1961 to 2010: a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 106(2): 751–768

[26] Liu X, Zhang L, Hong S (2011a). Global biodiversity research during 1900–2009: a bibliometric analysis. Biodivers Conserv, 20(4): 807–826

[27] Manicacci D, Olivieri I, Perrot V, Atlan A, Gouyon P H, Prosperi J M, Couvet D (1992). Landscape ecology: population genetics at the metapopulation level. Landsc Ecol, 6(3): 147–159

[28] Matthiessen M C, Winkel S A (1999). Scientific centres in Europe: an analysis of research strength and patterns of specialisation based on bibliometric indicators. Urban Stud, 36(3): 453–477

[29] O’neill R V, Riitters K H, Wickham J D, Jones K B (1999). Landscape pattern metrics and regional assessment. Ecosyst Health, 5(4): 225–233

[30] Pina D G, Barać L, Buljan I, Grimaldo F, Marušić A (2019). Effects of seniority, gender and geography on the bibliometric output and collaboration networks of European Research Council (ERC) grant recipients. PLoS One, 14(2): e0212286

[31] Peng H E, Zhang H R (2009). Study on factor analysis and selection of common landscape metrics. For Res, 22(4): 470–474

[32] Peng J, Wang Y L, Zhang Y, Ye M T, Wu J S (2006). Research on the influence of land use classification on landscape metrics. Acta Geogr Sin, 61(2): 157–168

[33] Schumaker N (1996). Using landscape indices to predict habitat connectivity. Ecology, 77(4): 1210–1225

[34] Shen S, Yue P, Fan C (2019). Quantitative assessment of land use dynamic variation using remote sensing data and landscape pattern in the Yangtze River Delta. Sustain Comput Infor, 23: 111–119

[35] Vorovencii I (2015). Quantifying landscape pattern and assessing the land cover changes in Piatra Craiului National Park and Bucegi Natural Park, Romania, using satellite imagery and landscape metrics. Environ Monit Assess, 187(11): 692

[36] Wang H W, Tiyip T (2009). Remote sensing dynamic monitor and driving force of soil salinization in arid area: a case of delta oasis of Weigan and Kuqa River. Arid Land Geogr, 32(3): 445–453

[37] Wang X, Li X, Zhang Z, Ma M (2014). Spatial display of bibliometric indicators using information system. Libr Inform Service, 58(3): 72–77

[38] Wang X, Zhang Z, Li X (2015). Tendency analysis of the international studies of qinghai-tibet plateau using MKD and GIS. J China Soc Sci and Tech Inform, 34(9): 930–937

[39] Wang Y, Hong S, Wang Y, Gong X, He C, Lu Z, Zhan F B (2019). What is the difference in global research on central Asia before and after the collapse of the USSR: a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 119(2): 909–930

[40] Wu A (2015). Trends of the geographical distribution of the core journals in china. Journal of Academic Libraries, 33(03): 96–100

[41] Wu J (2004). Effects of changing scale on landscape pattern analysis: scaling relations. Landsc Ecol, 19(2): 125–138

[42] Wu J (2013). Geographical knowledge diffusion and spatial diversity citation rank. Scientometrics, 94(1): 181–201

[43] Wu J, Shen W, Sun W, Tueller P T (2002). Empirical patterns of the effects of changing scale on landscape metrics. Landsc Ecol, 17(8): 761–782

[44] Yang M, Wang X (2015). A biliometrics analysis of world libraries’ papers based on GIS. Remote Sensing Technology and Application, 30(4): 819–824

[45] Yang W R (2015a). Spatiotemporal change and driving force of urban landscape pattern in Beijing. Acta Ecol Sin, 35(13): 4357–4366

[46] Zhang D, Fu H Z, Ho Y S (2017). Characteristics and trends on global environmental monitoring research: a bibliometric analysis based on Science Citation Index Expanded. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 24(33): 26079–26091

[47] Zhang Q J, Fu B J, Chen L D (2003). Several problems about landscape pattern change research. Sci Geogr Sin, 23(3): 264–270

[48] Zhang X, Estoque R C, Xie H, Murayama Y, Ranagalage M (2019). Bibliometric analysis of highly cited articles on ecosystem services. PLoS One, 14(2): e0210707

[49] Zhang X, Zhang F, Wang D (2018). Analysis of bibliometrics and visualization on landscape in china and abroad during 2010–2016. J SW China Normal U (Natrual Science Edition), 43(7): 149–156

[50] Zhou P L, Leydesdorff L (2006). The Emergence of China as a Leading Nation in Science. Res Policy, 35(1): 84–103

[51] Zhuang Y, Liu X, Nguyen T, He Q, Hong S (2013). Global remote sensing research trends during 1991–2010 a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 96(1): 203–219

Acknowledgment

This work was jointly supported by the project of National Social Science Fund of China (17ZDA188) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41830648, 41771453).

Electronic Supplementary Material

ƒis available in the online version of this article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11707-021-0875-z and is accessible for authorized users.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2021 Higher Education Press