Knowledge Domain and Emerging Trends in Vulnerability Assessment in the Context of Climate Change: A Bibliometric Analysis (1991-2017)

Analysis of the knowledge structure and the evolution of research topics in specific areas has been the focus of information science (IS). Such analysis helps to enrich interested researchers' understanding of the functions, activities and evolving constraints of the knowledge domain. This study aims to investigate the knowledge domain associated with the vulnerability assessment in the context of climate change (VACC) research in this fast-growing field between January 1991 and December 2017. A bibliometric approach, along with CiteSpace software, was used to identify and visualize thematic patterns, landmark articles and emerging trends. The data used for the bibliometric analysis include 6,584 original research articles and reviews published between 1991 and 2017. The results indicate that the number of documents pertaining to VACC presented a general growth trend over the last twenty-seven years. Climatic Change was the most productive journal. Among countries, the USA, England and Australia predominated, and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and U.S. Geological Survey were the two institutions with the largest amount of VACC research. Existing studies in the field of VACC research have focused primarily on environmental sciences. Importantly, emerging trends in VACC research have shifted away from vulnerability assessments of natural ecosystems based on model simulation methods in the context of climate change toward indicator-based assessments of social ecosystem vulnerability, adaptive capacity and resilience under multidimensional stressors and shocks, which are likely to define the new frontier in the field of VACC research.