Research Progress and Hotspot Evolution Analysis of Landscape Microclimate: Visual Analysis Based on CNKI and WOS

Abstract

With the increasing requirements of healthy habitat environments, landscape microclimates have been widely concerned. To comprehensively grasp the development history and research status of the landscape microclimates in China and other countries, CiteSpace software was used to comparatively analyze and visually present the literature related to landscape microclimates in CNKI and WOS databases for the past 20 years. The results show that: (1) The number of publications on landscape microclimate research shows an increasing trend in China and other countries, and the number of publications increased significantly after 2016. Although the number of publications by Chinese scholars is less than that of foreign scholars, they have developed rapidly in recent years, and their international influence has increased significantly. (2) A positive exchange has been formed among international scholars, and the number of collaborative studies has been increasing. China’s microclimate research has formed relatively stable teams that have conducted numerous studies in the fields of urban communities, street greening, and plant communities, respectively. Although the links between research teams and institutions in China and other countries are relatively close, they still need to be further strengthened. (3) In the past decade, the theoretical system of landscape microclimates has been improved, and the research themes have become more concentrated, but it still has remained close to the early basic research. (4) Future research will remain centered on “mitigating the urban heat island effect” and “optimizing human heat perception”. New topics such as “biodiversity”, “carbon cycle”, and “climate change” have been added. In conclusion, the research needs to continue to explore the evaluation system of microclimates and verify the evaluation index of outdoor thermal comfort for human thermal adaptation in different regions. The standards and systems of human habitat adapted to different regional characteristics should be formed.