Microplastics in Terrestrial Ecosystems: A Scientometric Analysis

Donghui He, Keith Bristow, Vilim Filipović, Jialong Lv and Hailong He
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Donghui He: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Keith Bristow: CSIRO Agriculture, PMB Aitkenvale, Townsville, QLD 4814, Australia
Vilim Filipović: Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Jialong Lv: Key Laboratory of Agricultural Soil and Water Engineering in Arid and Semiarid Areas, Ministry of Education, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Hailong He: College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 20, 1-15

Abstract: Microplastics, as an emerging contaminant, have been shown to threaten the sustainability of ecosystems, and there is also concern about human exposure, as microplastic particles tend to bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain. While microplastics in marine environments have been extensively studied, research on microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems is just starting to gain momentum. In this paper, we used scientometric analysis to understand the current status of microplastic research in terrestrial systems. The global scientific literature on microplastics in terrestrial ecosystems, based on data from the Web of Science between 1986 and 2020, was explored with the VOSviewer scientometric software. Co-occurrence visualization maps and citation analysis were used to identify the relationship among keywords, authors, organizations, countries, and journals focusing on the issues of terrestrial microplastics. The results show that research on microplastics in terrestrial systems just started in the past few years but is increasing rapidly. Science of the Total Environment ranks first among the journals publishing papers on terrestrial microplastics. In addition, we also highlighted the desire to establish standards/protocols for extracting and quantifying microplastics in soils. Future studies are recommended to fill the knowledge gaps on the abundance, distribution, ecological and economic effects, and toxicity of microplastics.

Keywords: plastic pollution; soil; publication trends; coauthorship; co-occurrence; bibliometric analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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