A historical review and bibliometric analysis of research on lead in drinking water field from 1991 to 2007

A bibliometric analysis based on Science Citation Index (SCI) published by Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) was carried out to identify the global research related to lead in drinking water field from 1991 to 2007 and to improve the understanding of research trends in the same period. The results from this analysis indicate that there have been an increasing number of annual publications mainly during two periods: from 1992 to 1997 and from 2004 to 2007. United States produced 37% of all pertinent articles followed by India with 8.0% and Canada with 4.8%. Science of the Total Environment published the most articles followed by Journal American Water Works Association and Toxicology. Summary of the most frequently used keywords are also provided. Cadmium was the most popular author keyword in the 17 years. Furthermore based on bibliometric results four research aspects were summarized in this paper and the historical research review was also presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.