Research Progress of Urban Floods under Climate Change and Urbanization: A Scientometric Analysis

Abstract

Urban floods research has been attracting extensive attention with the increasing threat of flood risk and environmental hazards due to global climate change and urbanization. However, there is rarely a comprehensive review of this field and it remains unclear how the research topics on urban floods have evolved. In this study, we analyzed the development of urban floods research and explored the hotspots and frontiers of this field by scientific knowledge mapping. In total, 3314 published articles from 2006 to 2021 were analyzed. The results suggest that the number of published articles in the field of urban floods generally has an upward trend year by year, and the research focus has shifted from exploring hydrological processes to adopting advanced management measures to solve urban flood problems. Moreover, urban stormwater management and low impact development in the context of climate change and urbanization have gradually become research hotspots. Future research directions based on the status and trends of the urban floods field were also discussed. This research can not only inspire other researchers and policymakers, but also demonstrates the effectiveness of scientific knowledge mapping analysis by the use of the software CiteSpace and VOSviewer.