A Bibliometric Analysis and Network Visualisation of Human Mobility Studies from 1990 to 2020: Emerging Trends and Future Research Directions

Siqin Wang, Mengxi Zhang, Tao Hu, Xiaokang Fu, Zhe Gao, Briana Halloran and Yan Liu
Additional contact information
Siqin Wang: School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4067, Australia
Mengxi Zhang: School of Health, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47304, USA
Tao Hu: Centre of Geographic Analysis, Harvard University, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Xiaokang Fu: State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, No. 129 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430000, China
Zhe Gao: Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Briana Halloran: School of Health, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47304, USA
Yan Liu: School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4067, Australia

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-22

Abstract: Studies on human mobility have a long history with increasingly strong interdisciplinary connections across social science, environmental science, information and technology, computer science, engineering, and health science. However, what is lacking in the current research is a synthesis of the studies to identify the evolutional pathways and future research directions. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic review of human mobility-related studies published from 1990 to 2020. Drawing on the selected publications retrieved from the Web of Science, we provide a bibliometric analysis and network visualisation using CiteSpace and VOSviewer on the number of publications and year published, authors and their countries and afflictions, citations, topics, abstracts, keywords, and journals. Our findings show that human mobility-related studies have become increasingly interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional, which have been strengthened by the use of the so-called ‘big data’ from multiple sources, the development of computer technologies, the innovation of modelling approaches, and the novel applications in various areas. Based on our synthesis of the work by top cited authors we identify four directions for future research relating to data sources, modelling methods, applications, and technologies. We advocate for more in-depth research on human mobility using multi-source big data, improving modelling methods and integrating advanced technologies including artificial intelligence, and machine and deep learning to address real-world problems and contribute to social good.

Keywords: human mobility; literature review; bibliometric analysis; network visualisation; CiteSpace; VOSviewer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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