Bibliometric Analysis on Wildfires and Protected Areas

Wildfire are increasingly frequent events on a planet undergoing climate change. With more favourable climate conditions for their occurrence, like prolonged periods of drought, the frequency and intensity of these catastrophes continue to increase. Protected areas are important territories for conserving ecosystems and biodiversity around the world and serve as a key management tool in national environmental policies. Many studies have been developed around the world to assess the conditions, frequency, and intensity of fires, and, on the other hand, protected areas are intensively studied to understand whether conservation actions are effective in keeping the ecosystem balanced. However, there are few studies that contemplate these two themes together. Consequently, this study offers a bibliometric analysis of the wildfires and its occurrence in protected areas, aiming to understand the spatial and temporal relation between them, characteristics of the research studies, and trending issues to be worked on. We used the Bibliometrix package in R language, which provides the option of different methods for analysing bibliometric data to understand the temporal evolution of the published documents about wildfires and protected areas. In total, 1116 publications were analysed, ranging from 1970 to 2022. The findings show that the terms fires (185 occurrences), fire (117), wildfire (101), and forest fire (92) are more frequently used and associated with studies on topics including biodiversity (304), conservation (221), environmental protection (188), deforestation (148), ecosystems (138), forestry (133), and climate change (126) as well as protected areas (399). The highest growth of research has been registered since 2002. The majority of the publications were published by authors from universities in the USA (77), South Africa (72), the United Kingdom (22), and Brazil (19). The USA leads all other countries with 7 of the top 10 international collaborations, followed by Brazil, Australia, and South Africa. However, only the United Kingdom continues to maintain an increased number of external (inter-country) collaborations, whereas the other nine continue to maintain an increased number of internal (intra-country). Considering the top 10 authors in terms of production, only 1 was active from 1999 to 2019, and the other 9 only have been active since 2009. The topics that stand out were subjected to a coupling analysis, which revealed that environmental protection is a motor theme, endangered species, Australia, and savannah are niche themes, and protected area, biodiversity, and fire management are basic themes.

Automated summary

Wildfires are becoming more frequent due to climate change, particularly in areas experiencing prolonged drought. Protected areas play a crucial role in conserving ecosystems and biodiversity, but there is limited research on the occurrence of wildfires in these areas. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis to understand the spatial and temporal relation between wildfires and protected areas, as well as the characteristics and trends in research on this topic.