The frontier evolution and emerging trends of hydrological connectivity in river systems: a scientometric review

Abstract

With the intensification of climate change and human activities, the watershed ecosystem is seriously fragmented, which leads to the obstruction of hydrological connectivity, and further causes the degradation of the ecosystem. As the value of wetlands continues to be exploited, hydrological connectivity becomes increasingly significant. In this paper, the characteristics and development of hydrological connectivity research from 1998 to 2018 were analyzed through the scientometric analysis based on Web of Science database. CiteSpace, an analytical software for scientific measurement, is used to visualize the results of the retrieval. The analysis results of co-occurrence, co-operative and co-cited network indicate that the hydrological connectivity is a multidisciplinary field which involves the Environment Science and Ecology, Water Resources, Environmental Sciences, Geology and Geosciences. According to Keyword cooccurrence analysis, ecosystem, floodplain, dynamics, climate change and management are the main research hotspots in each period. In addition, the co-cited analysis of references shows that “amphibians” is the largest cluster of hydrological connectivity, and the “channel network” is the most important research topic. It is worth noting that the “GIWS” (Geographically Isolated Wetlands) is the latest research topic and may be a major research direction in the future.