The Bibliometric Analysis of Microplastics in Soil Environments: Hotspots of Research and Trends of Development

Abstract

Microplastics are persistent and complex contaminants and have been recognized as a global concern. Recently, increasing efforts have been devoted to studying the influence of microplastics on soils. However, the complexity of microplastics and the diversity of extraction methods result in a lack of systematic analysis and comprehensive review in this field. In this paper, we used CiteSpace software to summarize the development of this field. Then, we visualized and analyzed the knowledge structure, research hotspots, and trend directions of this field. We found that the number of publications escalated dramatically, and 281 institutions in 69 countries have published articles in this field. Among them, China was the most productive contributor. However, according to the scientific collaboration analysis, we found that more than 90% of the authors who contributed to the field had no close connection. In co-occurrence analysis for subject categories, we found that the research in this field covered environmental science, engineering, ecology, and agriculture. Additionally, the effect of soil microplastics on agriculture was the most important problem in scientific research. The keyword co-occurrence cluster analysis revealed a total of 6 clusters, including “Identification” (#0), “Microbial community” (#1), “Oxidative stress” (#2), “Adsorption” (#3), “Porous media” (#4), and “Abundance” (#5). We discussed several aspects in detail, including detection methods, characteristics, environmental effects, adsorption capacity, removal and degradation, and toxicity. According to these results, we summarized the current research hotspots and evaluated future research trends in soil microplastics. This study is the first to specifically visualize the research field, and these results provide a reference for future research in the field of soil microplastics.