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A bibliometric analysis for the research on river water quality assessment and simulation during 2000–2014

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Abstract

Based on bibliometric analysis, this paper identified certain characteristics of literature related to river water quality assessment and simulation and consequently to assist researchers to establish future research directions. There were 3701 articles pertinent to river assessment and simulation published by SCIE and SSCI databases from 2000 to 2014. Various publication characteristics were analyzed, such as countries, research organizations, subject categories, journals and keywords. Results showed there was a significant growth in total publications over the past 15 years. The USA took a leading position out of 104 countries/territories, followed by China and the UK. Similarly, Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most significant contributor in this field of research. Environmental sciences and water resources were the top two most central subject categories and journal of hydrology was the most productive journal. Singh K. P ranked the first in terms of comprehensive index in all core authors. Five clusters were identified in terms of keywords networks. And temporal trend of keywords indicated nutrient and eutrophication is the hot topics and SWAT is widely accepted as the model to study water quality in the past 15 year.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Yimei Tian from the Tianjin University and Associate Professor Jian Zuo from the University of Adelaide for their proofreading and suggestions. This study was supported by the National Water Pollution Control and Treatment Science and Technology Major Project (2014ZX07203-009-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Yuan Wang, Cuiyun Xiang, Peng Zhao & Guozhu Mao

  2. College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Huibin Du

  3. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Institute of Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Huibin Du

Authors
  1. Yuan Wang
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  2. Cuiyun Xiang
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  3. Peng Zhao
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  4. Guozhu Mao
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  5. Huibin Du
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Correspondence to Peng Zhao.

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Wang, Y., Xiang, C., Zhao, P. et al. A bibliometric analysis for the research on river water quality assessment and simulation during 2000–2014. Scientometrics 108, 1333–1346 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2014-2

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