A Bibliometric Analysis of Current Status on Biodeterioration of Cultural Heritage during 2018-2022

Abstract

Biodeterioration occurs through the availability of biotic and abiotic factors favoring the growth of harmful fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms on cultural heritage. Thus, biodeterioration mechanism has raised a global concern since it is commonly detected on cultural heritage buildings located in specific geographical locations such as southern European countries. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer and OpenRefine for data cleaning by obtaining data from Scopus database of peer-reviewed publications to provide an overview of scientific literatures on biodeterioration. A total of 537 articles were analyzed within the period of 2018 – 2022 to acquire the current status of biodeterioration issue. 537 documents on biodeterioration were published by 1451 organizations from 68 countries. The co-authorship network map generated the trend of authors in biodeterioration research that identified the most productive author from China and organization from Japan. The co-occurrence network map of the keywords presented the significant interrelations of biodeterioration research field with the development of natural biocides to cope with the colonization of fungi and bacteria on cultural heritage. These results are expected to support the understanding of the intellectual structure of biodeterioration research.