A Bibliometric Analysis on the Effects of Land Use Change on Ecosystem Services: Current Status, Progress, and Future Directions

Land use changes cause significant alterations in the land surface structure and significantly impact ecosystem services. Research on land use change (LUC) and ecosystem services has become one of the hotspots of interdisciplinary research in ecology and geography. Based on 1860 publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection(TM) (WoS), the top authors, top organizations, top journals, and subject categories were discussed in detail. For the number of published articles, Sustainability ranks first with 86 publications, providing significant contributions in domain. The keywords could be classified into six categories: land use/land cover change, conservation, biodiversity, policies and programmers, environmental change, and agriculture. Citations and reference co-citations were analyzed, and popular literature and co-cited literature in the field were identified. In the discussion, we focus on four important issues, including land use area changes, land use pattern changes, land use spatial pattern changes, and land use changes at different scales. The research framework in the field and the shortcomings of existing research are discussed as well. The main aim of the paper is to assist researchers in identifying potential gaps in the research that should be addressed in future research.

Automated summary

This study discusses the hotspots and keyword categories of research on land use change (LUC) and ecosystem services based on 1860 publications. It analyzes the number of published articles, top authors, organizations, journals, and subject categories. The study also examines the changes in land use area, pattern, and spatial pattern, as well as the limitations of existing research. The main goal is to assist researchers in identifying potential research gaps.