Research Foundation and Hotspot Analysis of Urban Road Ecology—A Bibliometric Study Based on CiteSpace

Abstract

Urban road ecology focuses on the reciprocal interactions between urban road construction and the ecological environment, aiming to provide valuable insights into sustainable urban road construction. The study of road ecology has established a comprehensive research framework since the early 20th century, with urban road ecology emerging as its sub-discipline that emphasizes the strategic planning of urban roads and the internal dynamics within urban ecosystems. In order to demonstrate the broader research focus and development prospects of urban road ecology, as well as to explore its distinguishing features compared to traditional road ecology, this study conducted a bibliometric analysis of urban road ecology using CiteSpace software version 6.2.R7 based on the Web of Science (WOS) database for the literature in the last 30 years. The analysis reflected the current state of research in this field across three dimensions: collaborative analysis, co-citation analysis, and keyword analysis. The results of the study revealed a scarcity of key terms and publications between 1993 and 2010, followed by an exponential surge in research activities after 2010. However, both collaborative and keyword analyses indicate a lack of long-term, in-depth research in this area, highlighting the absence of a unified system. On this basis, this paper presents three expectations for future research and briefly discusses the limitations of this study.