Bibliometric analysis on desertification restoration based on CiteSpace

Land desertification develops in a gradual manner and can bring about great natural and social disasters. As an important measure that can benefit the nation, desertification restoration can greatly benefit the whole nation and is the key to the restoration of the ecological environment and sustainable development. Based on citation overview theory and literature visualization tool, this research adopts CiteSpace software for the visualized analysis on environmental restoration studies published in SCIE and SSCI from 2000 to 2020 and statistical analysis based on years, nations (areas), work units, authors, journals and key words. The research results show that the number of published papers issued annually tends to rise in the world, especially China. About half of the published papers come from China, in which Chinese Acad Sci units have the largest number of periodicals but limited international influence. Core journals such as BIOGEOCHEMISTRY, P LANT SOIL and ECOLOGY have made greater contributions to this field and multiple themes have been selected, including Gurbantunggut desert, mycorrhizae, soil restoration, Karst, and vegetation pattern formation. The research can be divided into three stages: The inception stage is from 2000 to 2006 with the protection and control of desertification as the major targets; the development stage is from 2007 to 2016, during which ecological system, policy, and reafforestation become the focus of the study; the third stage is from 2017 to 2020 during which period there is no catchphrase and relevant studies are represented as diversified development.