A Science Mapping Approach to Pasture Degradation

Abstract

Pastures play a critical role in the global ecological system, covering approximately 20% of the global terrestrial surface. This paper aims to review the progress of research on pasture degradation in different countries. The main research methods for this study include bibliometric analysis, social network analysis and viewing analysis - covering the performance of publications, characteristics of related journals, countries, institutions and authors. The Impact Factor, the H-index and the number of citations are used to investigate the strength of active institutions, authors and scientific periodicals in the field of pasture degradation. Therefore, we intend to outline the research trends already made and point out to future studies. We found 1027 articles published between 1956 and 2018, but none of them has reviewed science in a systematically way. The majority of authors are from China, United States and Germany. These lines of research aim to show the dynamics of pasture in response to the climate, the changes in human activity, the estimates of degraded or healthy areas and the evaluation of public policy interventions. In terms of publication productivity analysis, we highlight the Journal of Arid Environments, the author Richard J. Dean and the institution Chinese Academy of Sciences.