COVID-19 and the emerging research trends in environmental studies: a bibliometric evaluation

• Published in: Environmental science and pollution research international 2021-04, Vol.28 (14), p.16913-16924
• Main Authors: Usman, Muhammad, Ho, Yuh-Shan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antimicrobial agents; Aquatic Pollution; Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Bibliometrics; Citation analysis; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Disease transmission; Disinfectants; Documents; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecotoxicology; Environment; Environmental Chemistry; Environmental factors; Environmental Health; Environmental impact; Environmental quality; Environmental quality assessment; Environmental science; Environmental studies; Evaluation; Food security; Global Health; Humans; Indexing; Medical research; Pandemics; Public health; Quality assessment; Review; Review Article; SARS-CoV-2; Solid waste management; Solid wastes; Trends; Viral diseases; Waste management; Waste Water Technology; Water Management; Water Pollution Control
• ISSN: 0944-1344; 1614-7499
• DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-13098-z

The ongoing pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global health emergency. Thousands of articles have been published to tackle this crisis. Here, a bibliometric study of the publications in environmental studies has been conducted to identify the emerging research trends in this field in the era of COVID-19. Bibliometric analysis serves as a useful tool to evaluate research productivity and scholarly trends in a field. For this, publications were searched in nine environment-related subject categories indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) database of the Web of Science Core Collection. A bibliometric evaluation of 495 relevant documents was performed to identify various essential research indicators, including the type of the publication, the most prominent journals, subject categories, authors, institutions, and the countries, that contributed significantly to this theme. Major focus of this bibliometric study is to illustrate the potential research hotspots emerged during this pandemic. It has been found that significant amount of research has been conducted for the assessment of environmental quality and its contribution in environmental transmission of COVID-19. In addition to its positive impacts on environment, COVID-19 has contributed indirectly in worsening many environmental threats such as increased exposure to disinfectants and antimicrobials, poor solid waste management, and food insecurity. Researchers have also been focusing on the strategies for the planning of post-COVID-19 cities and buildings and to protect the ecology. This bibliometric study allowed the visualization of research agenda in the field of environmental studies during this pandemic.