Cross sectional study of the top research topics in environmental science and engineering

Abstract

Researchers in the field of environmental science and technology, as in many other fields, are often wondering what are the hottest research topics in their field? In order to objectively answer this question, herein the bibliometric/scientometric information from 15 top peer-reviewed environmental journals have been extracted and analyzed. Overall, data from more than 25,000 articles indexed in Scopus were used to give an understanding of the most important research trends in the field. The covered journals were Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Green Chemistry, Water Research, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Environmental Science & Technology, Journal of Cleaner Production, ChemSusChem, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, Bioresource Technology, Desalination, Waste Management, Science of the Total Environment, Chemosphere, Journal of Environmental Management, and Environmental Research. The results indicated that the most prevalent areas of research in the top journals were water and wastewater treatment as well as sustainability and climate change. Other prominent areas include catalysis (in particular photocatalysis), pollution and toxicity removal (in particular adsorption), biomass and bioenergy.

Keywords

• Bibliometry
• Scientometrics
• Research topics
• Publications