A Systematic Review of Urban Vegetation Research during 2000–2023: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Urban vegetation is a fundamental element and the keystone of urban ecological systems. Therefore, better comprehending the patterns of change over time and space in this vegetation is crucial for more effective urban environment management to enhance urban habitat and counteract the negative impacts of accelerated urbanization. This study examined 1,081 articles listed in the Scopus database on urban vegetation between 2000 and 2023. After being exported in CSV format, these data were analyzed using VOSviewer for data visualization, Scopus Analytics for performance evaluation, MS Excel for organizing data in graphical form, and CiteSpace for examining the emergence of keywords. The objective was to offer guidance on current topics and forecast future research trends related to this theme. This analysis shows that in 2000, only 5 articles on urban vegetation were published, which has risen by 2840% to 142 in 2023, following a quadratic function (R2=0.9524). China is the country most interested in this topic, with 273 articles (25.25%). Thus, China and the United States are the most cooperative nations on the urban vegetation subject. Over the past 24 years, the environmental science field has contributed the most, with 33.3% of papers published. Concerning sources, the journal Urban Forestry and Urban Greening comes first with 73 articles and 2127 citations. The keyword “urban vegetation” is the most frequently used by authors (occurrences: 330, links: 115, and total link strength: 459). In terms of cocitations, an analysis of 75887 authors revealed that X. Li came out first with a total link strength of 21626 and 507 citations while G. D. Jenerette takes first place, concerning the co-authorship with 11 publications and 899 citations. Moreover, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the most effective and influential institution on the subject. Keyword emergence analysis revealed that urban growth, urban development, and ecosystem services have become current research hotspots with considerable impact over the past three years. This work has provided structured data, guidelines, and useful recommendations for further investigations, which can contribute to a better comprehension of the environmental features of urban vegetation.