Forests and Forestry in Support of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

To address the world’s ongoing environmental challenges, 193 countries have committed to 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) concerning the economy, society, and the environment. However, there are gaps in our understanding of forests and forestry support SDGs. Through a systematized review, we identified which SDGs are relevant to forests and forestry at the target level, along with their interactions (synergies or tradeoffs). In addition, a bibliometric analysis of 377 papers was conducted worldwide between 2015 and 2020, to elucidate the status and development trends of SDG research related to forests and forestry in this study. The research results show that: (1) 11 SDGs and 19 targets are related to forests and forestry, and 47 are interactions between SDG15 and other targets, including 35 synergy effects and 12 tradeoff effects. (2) The USA is the highest publication output country, while the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the highest publication output institution, and Jianguo Liu of the University of Michigan is the highest publication output author. (3) The keyword co-occurrence analysis results show that the research hotspots mainly focused on the impacts of and responses to climate change, biodiversity conservation, land resource protection and management, remote sensing, the impacts of deforestation, and the promotion of sustainable development through governance. (4) The co-citation results reveal the existence of nine research themes: human well-being, food security, land use, land productivity, land tenure, tree loss, simulation models, criteria, and resilience.