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

Research on the remediation of cesium pollution by adsorption: Insights from bibliometric analysis

While nuclear energy with zero carbon emissions will continue to occupy an indispensable position in future scenarios for power generation, the proper disposal of nuclear waste is still highly challenging in many countries. Adsorption is currently one of the primary methods used for removal of cesium from wastewater. However, no available literature has systematically summarized advances and outlooks on the adsorptive removal of cesium, and research issues such as relevant adsorption mechanisms remain largely unexplored. In this study, a bibliometric analysis was used to quantitatively analyze 10141 publications in the Web of Science Core Collection that were published from 1900 to 2022. Current publication trends and active countries, most influential authors and institutions, journal distribution, and research hotspots and trends were reviewed and summarized. The results for the conceptual structure and evolution of investigations in this field showed three distinct periods of rapid development in recent decades. The first period concerned the scope, degree, and influences of pollution by cesium and the development of natural adsorbents. The second period included the exploration and verification of adsorption mechanisms, the fabrication and optimization of new materials, and the application of density functional theory for chemical calculations. The third period involved the development of more advanced biodegradable, nanoscale and synthetic materials with great potential for use as adsorbents as well as advances in engineering applications. Notably, the study showed that it is necessary to further enhance application-driven laboratory investigations. Future directions for research were proposed, such as the investigation of complex adsorption mechanisms, development of new materials, and engineering applications of materials developed in the laboratory. The findings will provide valuable insights and serve as a reference for researchers and policymakers as they address the adsorptive remediation of cases of pollution by cesium.

A bibliometric analysis of research progress in sulfate-rich wastewater pollution control technology

Sustainable industrial development requires research on pollution control in industrial wastewater, particularly sulfate-rich wastewater, which poses a threat to the environment. This article differs from the previous sulfate wastewater treatment process and equipment review. Based on the quantitative analysis, this paper has determined some characteristics of the related literature on the pollution control technology of high-concentration sulfate wastewater to help researchers establish future research directions. From 1991-2020, the WoS database published 9473 articles related to high-concentration sulfate wastewater treatment technology. We used bibliometric analysis combined with social network analysis and s-curve technical analysis in this research. The United States was the first to start this type of research, Australia has insightful and instructive research articles in this area, and China is the most active in international cooperation. The keywords that appear most frequently in the dataset are degradation, adsorption, oxidation, reduction, and recovery. By S-curve fitting, it is known that biological treatment methods are closer to the maturity stage than physical and chemical treatment methods.

How do urban rainfall-runoff pollution control technologies develop in China? A systematic review based on bibliometric analysis and literature summary

Rapid urbanization in China is driving the need of urban rainfall-runoff pollution control technologies due to adverse impacts on water environment. In this study, literature from China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Web of Science and Scopus in 1995/1/1-2019/5/15 are used to review research hotspots, development process and future directions of urban rainfall-runoff pollution control technologies in China and global world. Temporal evolution of publications showed that source reduction played better growing trend in urban rainfall-runoff pollution control field for both China and global world. Furthermore, with bibliometric tool, density visualization maps and co-occurrence network maps were created to identify research hotspots in China and global world. By comprehensively analyzing research hotspots above and development process from extracted literature, future directions of urban rainfall-runoff pollution control technologies were predicted. For model and strategy, both China and global world would concern on the accuracy of models to evaluate combination technologies. For source reduction, China would explore rainwater purification in sponge city, while global world would investigate match characteristics between specific regions and control technologies, combination between model and technologies, and improvement of pollutants removal. For process control, China would enhance ecological gutter inlet performance, whereas global world would concentrate on optimization of rainwater harvesting system. For post treatment, China would estimate modified hydrocylone and coagulation technology, and improve performance of filtration systems, riparian buffers and constructed wetlands, while global world would explore ecological and landscape function of constructed wetlands. Since China ranked first in producing Western publications and was the second most cited country for Western publications recently, China would significantly influence future development of urban rainfall-runoff pollution control technologies around the world. Meanwhile, some directions including infiltration basin and rainwater harvesting system were still shortcomings for China due to a late start of urban rainfall-runoff pollution control technologies in China.

Water quality assessment based on multivariate statistics and water quality index of a strategic river in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Fifty-four water samples were collected between July and December 2019 at nine monitoring stations and fifteen parameters were analysed to provide an updated diagnosis of the Piabanha River water quality. Further, forty years of monitoring were analysed, including government data and previous research projects. A georeferenced database was also built containing water management data. The Water Quality Index from the National Sanitation Foundation (WQI_NSF) was calculated using two datasets and showed an improvement in overall water quality, despite still presenting systematic violations to Brazilian standards. Principal components analysis (PCA) showed the most contributing parameters to water quality and enabled its association with the main pollution sources identified in the geodatabase. PCA showed that sewage discharge is still the main pollution source. The cluster analysis (CA) made possible to recommend the monitoring network optimization, thereby enabling the expansion of the monitoring to other rivers. Finally, the diagnosis provided by this research establishes the first step towards the Framing of water resources according to their intended uses, as established by the Brazilian National Water Resources Policy.

Global Research Trends and Hotspots on Submarine Groundwater Discharge (SGD): A Bibliometric Analysis

Submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), a major component of the hydrological cycle, has significant impacts on the sustainable development of the marine environment. This study aimed to examine the literature characteristics and research hotspots of SGD based on Web of Science’s citation database from 1998–2019. With systematic bibliometric analysis, insights were made into multiple aspects including research output, subject categories, journals, countries/territories, institutions, authors, and hotspots and research trends. Results showed that the current amount of publications on SGD has increased exponentially. The characteristics of multi-subject, active international and inter-institutional collaborations were identified. There were 11 core journals publishing the research on SGD, and the number of covered journals increased linearly from 1998. USA had distinct advantages in publication outputs and took the core position in international collaborations. At present, the research hotspots of SGD mainly include the following: dynamics process and estimation of SGD with hydrogeological methods, tracer techniques, geochemical process in subterranean estuary, and dissolved material inputs to coastal waters via SGD. Citation analysis implied much development space in carbon flux transported by SGD and the implement of head as groundwater tracer. These results provided an instructive perspective of the present situation and future research direction on SGD.

Applicability of water quality models around the world-a review

Water quality models are important tools used in the management of water resources. The models are usually developed for specific regions, with particular climates and physical characteristics. Thus, applying these models in regions other than those they were designed for can generate large simulation errors. With consideration to these discrepancies, the goal of this study is to identify the models employed in different countries and assist researchers in the selection of the most appropriate models for management purposes. Published studies from the last 21 years (1997-2017) that discuss the application of water quality models were selected from three engineering databases: SpringerLink, Web of Science, and Scopus. Seven models for water quality simulations have been widely applied around the world: AQUATOX, CE-QUAL-W2, EFDC, QUALs, SWAT, SPARROW, and WASP. The countries most frequently applying water quality models are the USA, followed by China, and South Korea. SWAT was the most used model, followed by the QUAL group and CE-QUAL-W2. This study provides the opportunity for researchers, who wish to study countries with fewer cases of applied water quality models, to easily identify the work from that region. Furthermore, this work collated central themes of interest and the most simulated parameters for the seven countries that most frequently employed the water quality models.

The structure and emerging trends of construction safety management research: a bibliometric review

Recently, construction safety management (CSM) practices and systems have become important topics for stakeholders to take care of human resources. However, few studies have attempted to map the global research on CSM. A comprehensive bibliometric review was conducted in this study based on multiple methods. In total, 1172 CSM-related papers from the Web of Science Core Collection database were examined. The analyses focused on publication year, country-institute, publication source, author and research topics. The results indicated that the USA, China, Australia and the UK took leading positions in CSM research. Two branches of journals were identified, namely the branch of engineering science and that of safety science and social science. Additionally, seven themes together with 28 specific topics were detected to allow researchers to track the main structure and temporal evolution of CSM research. Finally, the main research trends and potential research directions were discussed to guide the future research.