Publication Performance and Trends in Mangrove Forests: A Bibliometric Analysis

Mangroves are one the most productive ecosystems on Earth, and they are geographically located in the tropics and sub-tropics. Notwithstanding their critical role in providing a large number of environmental services and benefits as well as livelihood provisions, mangrove forests are being lost globally at an alarming rate. At the same time, they are increasingly recognized as a cost-effective nature-based climate solution for their carbon sequestration and storage capacity. Despite their enormous importance to people’s lives and the ecosystem, no bibliometric study on this topic has been published to our knowledge. Here, we provide a bibliometric analysis of the research on mangroves with research trends, most influential research based on citation count, and the origins (country and institution) of major research. Using the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) database of the Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate Analytics), we identified 13,918 documents published between 1990 and 2019. Nevertheless, 12,955 articles met our final criteria and were analyzed in detail. Six publications and their citations per publication (CPP2019) were applied to evaluate the publication performance of countries and institutes. When considering the top ten Web of Science subject categories, articles published on the ecology of mangroves had the highest CPP2019 of 28. Environmental sciences have been the major category since 2013. The USA dominated the total articles and single-author articles. The USA was also the most frequent partner of international collaborative publications. China published the most single-country articles, first-author articles, and corresponding-author articles. However, articles by the USA and Australia had a higher CPP2019. Sun Yat Sen University in China was the most active university. The Australian Institute of Marine Science dominated all kinds of publications with the top CPP2019. Together with the USA, Australia, China, India, Brazil, and Japan ranked both the top six on total publications and total publications in 2019. Our bibliometric study provides useful visualization of the past and current landscape of research on mangroves and emerging fields, to facilitate future research collaboration and knowledge exchange.