Advances and future directions of environmental risk research: A bibliometric review

Abstract

Environmental risk is one of the world’s most significant threats, projected to be the leading risk over the next decade. It has garnered global attention due to increasingly severe environmental issues, such as climate change and ecosystem degradation. Research and technology on environmental risks are gradually developing, and the scope of environmental risk study is also expanding. Here, we developed a tailored bibliometric method, incorporating co-occurrence network analysis, cluster analysis, trend factor analysis, patent primary path analysis, and patent map methods, to explore the status, hotspots, and trends of environment risk research over the past three decades. According to the bibliometric results, the publications and patents related to environmental risk have reached explosive growth since 2018. The primary topics in environmental risk research mainly involve (a) ecotoxicology risk of emerging contaminants (ECs), (b) environmental risk induced by climate change, (c) air pollution and health risk assessment, (d) soil contamination and risk prevention, and (e) environmental risk of heavy metal. Recently, the hotspots of this field have shifted into artificial intelligence (AI) based techniques and environmental risk of climate change and ECs. More research is needed to assess ecological and health risk of ECs, to formulize mitigation and adaptation strategies for climate change risks, and to develop AI-based environmental risk assessment and control technology. This study provides the first comprehensive overview of recent advances in environmental risk research, suggesting future research directions based on current understanding and limitations.