Abstract
Purpose
Drylands cover 41% of the Earth’s surface (6 billion ha), where approximately 2 billion people live. In this study, we performed a bibliometric analysis of the evolution, collaboration, and trends of global soil science research on drylands.
Methods
We have used the papers on soil science in global drylands indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) data platform in the last 50 years (1970–2019).
Results
According to our results, a total of 31,304 scientific papers on the subject were published worldwide, following an exponential growth (R2 = 0.9413) over time. USA (26.2%), China (19.3%), and Australia (9.2%) were the most productive countries, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (10.0%) and USDA (5.8%) were the institutions with the greatest contributions. Our results indicated a predominance of scientific collaboration between European countries with African and South American countries and an intense scientific collaboration between the most productive countries (USA, China, and Australia). Journal of Arid Environments had the highest number of publications on the subject (3.0%), and soil biology, especially biological crusts, is probably the main research front of soil science studies on drylands.
Conclusion
Our results confirm the evolution of global soil science research on drylands over the past 50 years and confirm the multidisciplinary nature of this area of knowledge, with greater participation of studies focused on food production, but with a strong presence of studies related to environmental sciences, ecology, and water resources.
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de Souza Oliveira Filho, J., Pereira, M.G. Global soil science research on drylands: an analysis of research evolution, collaboration, and trends. J Soils Sediments 21, 3856–3867 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-021-03036-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-021-03036-4