Affiliation:
1. Institute of Climate Adaptation and Marine Biotechnology (IMB) Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Kuala Nerus 21030 Terengganu Malaysia
2. Research Center for Marine and Land Bioindustry, Earth Sciences and Maritime Research Organization National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Pemenang 83352 Indonesia
3. School of Animal Sciences, Aquatic and Environment Faculty of Bioresources and Food Industry, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin Besut 22200 Terengganu Malaysia
4. Laboratory of Ecology, Earth and Marine Sciences Department University of Palermo 90128 Palermo Italy
5. National Biodiversity Future Centre (NBFC) Piazza Marina 61 90133 Palermo Italy
6. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Marine Bioresources and Environment Jiangsu Ocean University Lianyungang 222005 Jiangsu China
7. Institute of Oceanography and Environment Universiti Malaysia Terengganu Kuala Nerus 21030 Terengganu Malaysia
Abstract
Reef restoration has gained attention as it has strategic actions and powerful means in sustaining and maintaining coastal ecosystem services. This scientometric study systematically analyzes the current trends and research hotspot in coral restoration across the last five decades (1971–2022). The metadata (12,667 articles with 652,860 cited references) were obtained from the Clarivate Web of Science platform through the Core Collection database, associated with the CiteSpace and R‐software for further analysis. The results indicated that the trend of coral restoration is increasing in paper/year, with the United States, Australia, and China as major contributors to the related research. Furthermore, James Cook University, Australia had the largest number of articles, and the Consortium of Research Libraries of the United Kingdom was the most influential institution on coral restoration. The highly cited keywords are “Great Barrier Reef,” “climate change,” and “coral reef,” while the most influential keywords are “coral,” “model,” and “Atlantic.” A total of 23 clusters in the field with “coral reef,” “phase shift,” “bacterial communities,” “coral restoration,” “symbiotic dinoflagellate,” “stony coral tissue loss disease,” “bleaching event,” “ocean acidification,” “oyster reef,” and “quantitative reconstruction” are among the top cluster size labeled. Early‐stage researcher may use both keywords and cluster analysis to find topics attractive to their future research projects. In addition, this study contributes toward evaluating recent scientific productivity about coral restoration as well as informing researchers and policymakers regarding funding, future strategic planning, and potential collaboration opportunities.