A Scientometric Review of Environmental Valuation Research with an Altmetric Pathway for the Future

Abstract

Environmental valuation (EV) research has advanced significantly as a method of assigning value to environmental goods, many of which lack readily discernible market values. The term “environmental valuation” describes a number of methods for putting monetary values on environmental effects, particularly non-market effects. Over the years, there has been a continuous increase in the number of publications on the topic. According to searches via the Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) databases, the phrase “environmental valuation” first occurred in 1987. The current research examines patterns in publishing rates over the previous three decades to analyse environmental valuation activity. To identify the future pathway, a research pattern was identified using Scopus, WoS, and the Altmetric Explorer. The data were postprocessed using VOSviewer to identify the mapping networks; then, Voyant Tools were used to explore the keywords. A summary of the demand for environmental valuation is also provided based on the literature review. However, the findings of this historical analysis indicate that despite the academic efforts on this subject, environmental valuation is not used in research as much as one may anticipate. In addition, the study gives a general outline of the future directions that environmental valuation research is anticipated to follow in light of the current academic research initiatives as well as academic market and policy market research efforts. The study shows that the United Kingdom (UK) showed the highest publications by location in this field. Additionally, the study shows that the choice experiment approach is preferred over the contingent valuation method, and this work illustrates this preference. It also demonstrates that only a small number of papers have had a significant influence on the researchers in this field.