Understanding Recent Trends in Global Sustainable Development Goal 6 Research: Scientometric, Text Mining and an Improved Framework for Future Research

Ajishnu Roy, Aman Basu, Yanyu Su, Yan Li and Xuhui Dong
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Ajishnu Roy: School of Geographical Sciences and Remote Sensing, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Aman Basu: Department of Biology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
Yanyu Su: School of Geographical Sciences and Remote Sensing, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Yan Li: School of Geographical Sciences and Remote Sensing, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Xuhui Dong: School of Geographical Sciences and Remote Sensing, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: The fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, concerning water and sanitation, is critical in itself and also conditional for the other 16 SDGs being met. The purpose of this study was to understand the scientific research trajectories, spatiotemporal development, scientific collaboration, ongoing research themes, and gaps related to SDG 6. We propose a coupling of bibliometric and text mining methods in this work, to statistically portray the impact of water research on the accomplishment of SDG 6. Through the Web of Science database, we focused on a single UN SDG goal (i.e., six related publications that were current (2015–2021)). The study was performed on the chosen 289 publications. With the analysis of Keywords Plus, abstracts, titles, as well as author keywords, we looked at the performance of authors, publications, journals, institutions, and nations in terms of publishing. To obtain an insight into the water and sanitation study topic, we used co-citation, co-occurrence, cooperation networks, theme networks and cluster analysis, word dynamics, thematic evolution, and other techniques. We filtered out five distinguishing themes using text mining and showed their temporal trends. The main outcome is that participation, as well as collaboration with countries of the Global South, is still lacking in the SDG 6 research sphere. Therefore, as an insight from this study, we proposed a conceptual framework, the sustainable development of water and sanitation (SDWS) framework, to classify the research domain of water and sanitation regarding its connections to the environment, economy, and society (i.e., sustainable development). The scientometric and text analysis results provide the contemporary state and overview of the water and sanitation research field, whereas the second, conceptual framework section, provides a better understanding of qualitative contents, by revealing the insights gained, as well as the important work to be done in future water and sanitation studies.

Keywords: sustainable development goal 6; bibliometric analysis; text mining; water and sanitation; global scale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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