Microplastics in Terrestrial Ecosystems: A Scientometric Analysis

Microplastics, as an emerging contaminant, have been shown to threaten the sustainability of ecosystems, and there is also concern about human exposure, as microplastic particles tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain. While microplastics in marine environments have been extensi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2020-10, Vol.12 (20), p.8739
Main Authors: He, Donghui, Bristow, Keith, Filipović, Vilim, Lv, Jialong, He, Hailong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Bibliometrics
Bioaccumulation
Citation analysis
Co authorship
Contaminants
Ecological effects
Economic impact
Environmental economics
Environmental science
Food chains
Keywords
Marine ecosystems
Marine environment
Microplastics
Plastics
Recycling
Scientometrics
Soil contamination
Sustainability
Terrestrial ecosystems
Terrestrial environments
Toxicity
Trends
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Summary:Microplastics, as an emerging contaminant, have been shown to threaten the sustainability of ecosystems, and there is also concern about human exposure, as microplastic particles tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain. While microplastics in marine environments have been extensively studied, research on microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems is just starting to gain momentum. In this paper, we used scientometric analysis to understand the current status of microplastic research in terrestrial systems. The global scientific literature on microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems, based on data from the Web of Science between 1986 and 2020, was explored with the VOSviewer scientometric software. Co-occurrence visualization maps and citation analysis were used to identify the relationship among keywords, authors, organizations, countries, and journals focusing on the issues of terrestrial microplastics. The results show that research on microplastics in terrestrial systems just started in the past few years but is increasing rapidly. Science of the Total Environment ranks first among the journals publishing papers on terrestrial microplastics. In addition, we also highlighted the desire to establish standards/protocols for extracting and quantifying microplastics in soils. Future studies are recommended to fill the knowledge gaps on the abundance, distribution, ecological and economic effects, and toxicity of microplastics.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su12208739