Forest Ecosystem Services: An Analysis of Worldwide Research

Abstract

The relevance of forests to sustain human well-being and the serious threats they face have led to a notable increase of research works on forest ecosystem services during the last few years. This paper analyses the worldwide research dynamics on forest ecosystem services in the period from 1998 to 2017. A bibliometric analysis of 4284 articles was conducted. The results showed that the number of published research articles has especially increased during the last five years. In total, 68.63% of the articles were published in this period. This research line experiences a growing trend superior to the general publishing trend on forest research. In spite of this increase, its relative significance within the forest research is still limited. The most productive subject areas corresponded to Environmental Science, Agricultural and Biological Sciences and Social Sciences Economic topics are understudied. The scientific production is published in a wide range of journals. The three first publishing countries are United States, China and the United Kingdom. The most productive authors are attached to diverse research centres and their contributions are relatively recent. A high level of international cooperation has been observed between countries, institutions and authors. The findings of this study are useful for researchers since they give them an overview of the worldwide research trends on forest ecosystem services.

Assessment of forest ecosystem service research trends and methodological approaches at global level: a meta-analysis

“…This journal publishes a lower number of articles than the Journal of Forestry, but its SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) index (1.625) is the highest from all journals. According to Aznar-Sánchez et al (2018), Forest Ecology and Management journal had the first article on FES in 2001 and had the first position after 2005. The third and fourth journals with the largest number of published articles were USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PNW Gtr and USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RMRS Gtr, which equally had 65 (4.4%) articles.…”

“…The Journal of Ecosystem Services has low rank based on the number of publication, which was 30 articles (2.0%) and had the eighth place. It is the most recent publication that joins this field of research and published its first article on FES in 2013 (Aznar-Sánchez et al 2018). Despite this, it takes the lead in the number of articles published and has the highest SJR index (1.743).…”

“…Ecosystem services as one field of studies began after the studies by Daily in 1997and Costanza et al in 1997(Aznar-Sánchez et al 2018. Later on, the concept is introduced to the political agenda by the MEA project in 2005; the TEEB in 2010 and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2012.…”

“…They are benchmarks that turned the concept into a political instrument to achieve the sustainable use of natural resources. They can benefit policy-makers to make an informed decision that is based on scientific evidence (Aznar-Sánchez et al 2018). Since the publication of the MEA document in 2005, ecosystems have become widely recognized as natural capital assets that support and supply services which are highly valuable to the human well beings.…”

“…These are caused by human-induced effects such as forest removal, degradation, and encroachments which caused a decline in biodiversity and ecosystem services (Tadesse et al 2014;Tolessa et al 2017). According to Aznar-Sánchez et al (2018), the expansion of farming land, urbanization, and effects of climate change also threaten the forest resources and its service flow. Thus, the forest resource needs management that sustainably prolongs the ecosystem services.…”