Recent Trends in Landscape Sustainability Research—A Bibliometric Assessment

Abstract

Landscape sustainability (LS) has received widespread attention from both scientists and practitioners in recent decades. However, a systematic review of the recent trends in this field remains scarce. Here, we present a bibliometric analysis of 715 English papers published in SCI journals (i.e., indexed by Web of Science) during 2006–2023, whose titles, abstracts, or keywords contain both landscape-related terms and sustainability-related terms. Specifically, we quantitatively analyzed the LS literature using a variety of bibliometric methods and qualitatively analyzed the full text of highly cited seminal literature to cross-validate the bibliometric findings. We found that: (1) LS has entered the exponential growth phase (2013–present) after experiencing the incubation phase (pre–2006) and emerging phase (2006–2013). (2) Early LS themes focused on landscape change and the relationship between landscape ecology and sustainability science, while recent LS themes have shifted towards more sectoral topics, such as the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being, climate change, and urbanization. (3) The closely connected network of cross-citations in seminal literature indicates strong communication among scientists in the field of LS. However, the participatory and solution-oriented research streams of LS have not been well integrated into the core research network of LS. Our results suggest that LS has evolved into a rapidly growing discipline with a stable scientific community and core research themes. To become a well-established discipline, LS needs to further enhance its unique scientific core rather than only drawing knowledge from other related fields. Constructing social–ecological-centered, solution-oriented landscape pattern analysis theory and methods for LS should be a top priority.