Abstract
Highly cited papers in the Essential Science Indicators database refer to papers with citations in the top 1% of all papers in a research field, and they are considered to be symbols of scientific excellence and top performance of the past ten years. This study provided an informetric analysis of 7791 highly cited papers in the environmental sciences category during 2009–2019. Informetric indicators and visualization tools were applied to evaluate and present the performances of journals, countries/territories, institutions, top cited papers, and research hotspots. The results showed that the cumulative number of publications has increased exponentially, suggesting strong development of the environmental sciences category. There were 211 journals publishing highly cited papers, with Energy & Environmental Science as the leading journal. The USA ranked first with the highest number of publications and occupied the core position in the collaboration network, while Mainland China took the first place in independent research output. Review articles have an obvious advantage in terms of achieving high citations. “Adsorption”, “climate change”, and “heavy metal” were the most frequent keywords, with “microplastic” rising rapidly as a new research frontier in recent years. Five research hotspots were visualized from highly cited papers via cluster analysis.
Highlights
Environmental science is an emerging interdisciplinary field relating social needs and environmental problems
One can see that the cumulative number of highly cited papers (HCPs) and all papers” (APs) fit Price’s curve with R2 = 0.99, suggesting the exponential growth of cumulative amount of HCPs and APs. These results indicated the strong development of research output and the high impact potential of the environmental sciences category
This study adopted informetric methods to analyze HCPs during 2009–2019 in the environmental sciences category based on the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database
Summary
Environmental science is an emerging interdisciplinary field relating social needs and environmental problems. It involves many aspects, including air, soil, water, and ecology [1,2]. With the rapid development of the economy and industrialization process, our environment has suffered great pressure from population growth and the enhancement of production activities [3,4]. In order to solve these environmental problems, great efforts (e.g., manpower, material, and financial resources) have been invested by governments and all sectors of society [7]. Environmental science has experienced remarkable development, marking a new stage of human beings’ understanding, utilization, and modification of the environment [8]
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