A Review of Urban Microclimate Research Based on CiteSpace and VOSviewer Analysis

Abstract

Urban microclimate has a direct impact on the quality of life of urban residents. Therefore, research on urban microclimates has received greater attention from contemporary scholars. At present, there is a lack of quantitative summary and review of the research in the field of urban microclimate, and it is urgent to sort out its research context and evolution. The Web of Science was used as the data source, and CiteSpace and VOSviewer software were used to analyze the urban microclimate research from 1980 to 2020. We discussed the annual trends, research countries, research institutions, key authors, highly cited publications, hot issues, and research fronts. The study found that: (1) the number of published articles on urban microclimate has experienced three stages: initial stage—slow growth period—rapid growth period; (2) European and American countries were the first to focus on urban microclimate research, while China started late but developed rapidly; (3) the research topics of urban microclimate are thermal comfort, improvement strategies, urban street canyons, and urban heat island effect; (4) the frontiers of urban microclimate include research on urban microclimate and building energy, ecosystem services, and urban parks.