Application and development of SWAT model: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

【Objective】 SWAT is a model widely used to simulate various processes including hydrological processes and crop growth at various scales. This paper reviews its application and development from 1994 to 2022. 【Method】 The analysis is based on published papers that have been indexed by the Web of Science (WOS). Three bibliometric tools, VOSviewer, CiteSpace and Biblioshiny were used in econometric analysis of the literature. The levels of attention, knowledge and research frontiers in SWAT application and development were analyzed based on the number of published papers, publishing journals, affiliated institutions, paper citation, keywords and research topics. 【Result】 ① A total of 3 496 papers related to SWAT were published from 1994 to 2022. After 2006, the number of published papers involving SWAT increased rapidly. Since 2008, the number of SWAT papers published by Chinese researchers has grown rapidly, surpassing the United States in 2019 and becoming the lead country in publishing SWAT papers. ② The journals that publish SWAT papers most are "Journal of Hydrology", "Hydrological Processes " and “Water". Non-Chinese authors who published most SWAT papers are Srinivasan R and Arnold J, both from the United States. Chinese authors who published most SWAT papers are Shen Zhenyao, Chen Lei and Ouyang Wei. ③ Beijing Normal University, the University of Texas, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hohai University, Wuhan University are the institutions that contributed most SWAT papers. Cooperation between countries and research institutions has promoted globalization and development of SWAT. ④ The application of SWAT is mainly in water resources, environmental science, and ecology. ⑤ The hotspots in SWAT are runoff simulation, assessment of the impact of land use and climate change on hydrological processes, soil erosion, pollution load. 【Conclusion】 SWAT has been widely used in different areas but its practical application still has some challenges. These include parameter calibrations and the associated uncertainties, model construction for different watersheds as well as the influence of different factors, impact of climate change and human activities.

Keywords

• swat model
• bibliometrix
• knowledge map
• hydrology
• web of science