­­­Discovering research trends of urban geology based on a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Urbanization contributes to the emerging urban areas across the world. The importance of geology to ensure sustainability, has led to many research publications in the urban geology. This paper aims to discover the research trends through a bibliometric analysis of articles indexed within the Scopus database from 1950 to 2018 on topics related to geology and urban. The analysis found a significant increase in publications during 1999-2016, especially after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami disaster. The next finding of this study is related to research interest clusters: engineering geological hazard investigation and risk assessment in the urban area (EGR); social geology and urban sustainability (SGS); and urban hydrology and water management (HGW). The EGR studies were mostly in underground engineering geology (geotechnics). In contrast, the least attention was given to the interaction between geology and land-use planning, due to the SGS issues (e.g., urban planning and land use suitability assessment). This study may serve as a platform for scholars to understand the current status and future directions of urban geology.