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Global research trends of geographical information system from 1961 to 2010: a bibliometric analysis

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Abstract

A bibliometric analysis of published geographical information system (GIS) research was performed to evaluate current research trends, quantitatively and qualitatively, over the period 1961–2010, based on SCIE & SSCI databases. Articles referring to GIS were concentrated on the analysis of scientific outputs, distribution of subject categories, source journals, international collaboration, geographic distribution of authors, temporal trends in keywords usage, and the relationship between GIS articles and computer numbers. The results showed that the growth of scientific outputs has exploded since 1991, with an increasing collaboration index, references, and citations. Environmental sciences, multidisciplinary geosciences, ecology, physical geography, water resources, geography, and remote sensing were most frequently used subject categories, and IJGIS was the most productive journal in this field. The United States produced the most independent and collaborative articles, took a central position in the collaboration network, and had the greatest number of most prolific institutions. North America, Western Europe, and East Asia had major clusters of authors. A keywords analysis demonstrated that the integration of GIS and RS was a key development trend. Spatial analysis, model, land use, map, and landscape were research hotspots. Generally, GIS research was significantly correlated with the development of personal computers, and there was a statistically significant quadratic polynomial growth in GIS-related articles. This study will help readers to understand global trends in GIS research during the past 50 years.

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Notes

  1. Ersi.com, http://www.esri.com/what-is-gis/overview.html#overview_panel.html, 12 April 2012.

  2. United Nations, 2012. United Nations database website url: http://data.un.org/.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Mr. Nan Feng (University of Alabama at Huntsville, USA), and Ms. Beibei Niu (Wuhan University, China) for their valuable suggestions in preparing this manuscript. This article is supported by “Shenzhen Basic Science Research Project, China” and “The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resource and Environmental Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Fenglian Liu, Aiwen Lin, Huanhuan Wang, Yuling Peng & Song Hong

  2. Shenzhen Institute of Wuhan University, Shenzhen, 518057, China

    Song Hong

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  1. Fenglian Liu
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Correspondence to Song Hong.

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Liu, F., Lin, A., Wang, H. et al. Global research trends of geographical information system from 1961 to 2010: a bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics 106, 751–768 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1789-x

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