Abstract
An Earth observation system (EOS) is essential in monitoring and improving our understanding of how natural and managed agricultural landscapes change over time or respond to climate change and overgrazing. Such changes can be quantified using a pasture model (PM), a critical tool for monitoring changes in pastures driven by the growing population demands and climate change-related challenges and thus ensuring a sustainable food production system. This study used the bibliometric method to assess global scientific research trends in EOS and PM studies from 1979 to 2019. This study analyzed 399 published articles from the Scopus indexed database with the search term “Earth observation systems OR pasture model”. The annual growth rate of 19.76% suggests that the global research on EOS and PM has increased over time during the survey period. The average growth per article is n = 74, average total citations (ATC) = 2949 in the USA, is n = 37, ATC = 488, in China and is n = 22, ATC = 544 in Italy). These results show that the field of the study was inconsistent in terms of ATC per article during the study period. Furthermore, these results show three countries (USA, China, and Italy) ranked as the most productive countries by article publications and the Netherlands had the highest average total citations. This may suggest that these countries have strengthened research development on EOS and PM studies. However, developing counties such as Mexico, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other African countries had a lower number of publications during the study period. Moreover, the results showed that Earth observation is fundamental in understanding PM dynamics to design targeted interventions and ensure food security. In general, the paper highlights various advances in EOS and PM studies and suggests the direction of future studies.
Highlights
This study evaluated studies on EOS and Pasture model (PM) to reveal the evolution and current research hotspot and better understand the dominant themes by using the bibliometric method to analyze published articles from l979 to 2019
The findings in this study would help to advance the understanding of evolutionary trends of these studies by assessing the intellectual domain and identifying the history of global scientific research history in EOS and PM studies
The reviewed studies were used to evaluate and determine the current research hotspots and dominant themes, considering the information from time-varying trends observed in EOS and PM during the study period
Summary
Global studies suggested different trends in pastures dynamics [8,9,10]. Such studies estimate 40% of pasture degradation globally between 1982 and 2006 [11,12]. Eastern Spain, western Mediterranean Badlands, Loess Plateau of China, eastern Himalayas of India, Western Brazilian Amazon, and Slovakia have been affected by high soil erosion rates leading to the degradation of pastures and rangeland ecosystems [14,15,16]. Large areas in Australia, South America, India, and half of the pasture surface in Africa have experienced varying degrees of deterioration from grazing pressure and soil erosion [5,17,18,19]
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