Global Environmental Impact Assessment Research Trends (1973-2009)

Abstract

According to the samples of 1781 literatures about environmental impact assessment (EIA) of SCI and SSCI databases from 1973 to 2009, this paper analyzes the literatures in their trend of growth, subject categories and journals, International collaborations, geographic distribution of publications and scientific research issues by using bibliometrics analysis. The result shows that EIA research steadily increases over the past 40 years and the annual number of papers published in 2009 is 50 times than that in 1973. EIA was involved into 130 kinds of subjects and appeared in 587 journals. The main study area with strong scientific research capabilities distributed in USA and European Union, while the USA was the largest contributor in EIA research and had a central position in collaboration networks. A keyword analysis found that the priority in assessment would gradually change from project environmental impact assessment to Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Plan Environmental Impact Assessment (PEIA); EIA research would focus on using and improving new techniques and methods, such as “life cycle assessment (LCA)”, “geographic information system (GIS)” and “modeling” etc.; “biodiversity” and “climate change” would attract more attention and will be the emphasis of EIA; the improvement of developing countries’ EIA system became popular research. This study reveals patterns in scientific outputs and academic collaborations and serves as an alternative and innovative way of identifying global research trends in EIA.