Bibliometric Analysis of Remote Sensing of Inland Waters Publications from 1985 to 2020

Abstract

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of studies about the use of remote sensing techniques for the monitoring of inland waters. Since these aquatic environments have multiple uses for mankind, monitoring them is essential for the environment, society, and the economy. The use of Earth Observations data for the monitoring of inland waters is important for water quantity and quality management. Because of this, the goal of the present study is to systematically analyze and visualize the evolution of publications in this field. This study will not focus on algorithm comparisons or descriptions; instead, it will use a co-citation analysis to map the relationship among publications. Using the Web of Science database, publications related to the terms, “remote sensing” + “inland waters”, were analyzed using the entire database. The bibliometric analysis showed how research topics evolved from measuring optical properties and understanding their signal to the development of remote sensing algorithms and their applications to satellite imagery. This study provides the historical development of the scientific publications in this field and points out what could be the direction for future research.