Global research trends in agro-geoinformatics during 1991–2015: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to evaluate agro-geoinformatics research from different perspectives during 1991–2015 based on the SCIE and SSCI databases. According to 15,127 document samples related to agro-geoinformatics, the bibliometric analysis was firstly identified by general patterns for publication outputs, subject categories and major journals related to agro-geoinformatics research. Then it evaluated productivity and performance in the level of author institution and country, and revealed the characteristics of authors' geographic distributions and international collaborations. What's more, it analyzed temporal trends in keywords usage in agro-geoinformatics studies. Additionally, it summarized global research trends from multiple perspectives to provide an alternative demonstration of research advancements, which may serve as a potential guide for futuristic research related to agro-geoinformatics. agro-geoinformatics-related research has undergone notable growth during the past 25 years. remote sensing, environmental sciences, and imaging science photographic technology were the 3 major science categories. International Journal of Remote Sensing was the most active journal in terms of quantity during the surveyed period and Remote Sensing of Environment has the biggest contribution in quantity. Pradhan, B from Univ Putra Malaysia was the most active author as corresponding author. Kustas, WP from USDA ARS was the most productive author as first author. And Weng, QH from Indiana State Univ had the most highly-qualified documents. The major author clusters and research regions are located in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, USDA ARS and NASA were the 3 major contributing institutions. However, USA was a leading contributor to global agro-geoinformatics research. With the most independent and collaborative articles, its dominance is also confirmed in the national/regional collaboration network. And a keyword analysis has found that effective research technologies and methods were promising topics attracting the most attention during the study period. Several keywords, such as “remote sensing”, “GIS”, “Precision agriculture”, “soil moisture” and “NDVI” have received dramatically increasing attention during the study period, which is possibly signaling the future research trends.