Abstract:

Hydrogeochemistry plays an important role in sustainable development, but only a few reviews have documented the development in this field. This work used the bibliometric visualization analysis softwares (CiteSpace and VOSviewer) to analyze the current status of hydrogeochemical research based on the data obtained from Web of Science database from January 1, 1982 to November 17, 2021. The results showed that the number of papers and citations in hydrogeochemistry presented an overall upward trend and the number of papers after 2010 was twice as many as that before 2010. Hydrogeochemical study is on the road of prosperity. In recent years, the increase in the number of relavent publications in China is higher than in the developed countries, such as the United States, Germany, and Canada, reflecting the strong research activities in this field in China. Such an active state of hydrogeochemical research in China is closely related to the funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the involvement of various scientific research institutions. Through the keyword analysis, the main themes in hydrogeochemistry from 1982 to 2021 were groundwater quality and human health, isotope application, element migration and transformation and microbial processes, and hydrogeochemistry of groundwater-surface water interactions. Results of bibliometric tool analysis and statistics from the International Symposium on Water-Rock Interactions since 1974 showed that the trends in hydrogeochemical studies included water-rock interactions on different spatial scales and in different environments, development and application of isotope technology, biogeochemistry, and groundwater quality.

Key words: bibliometrics, CiteSpace, VOSviewer, hydrogeochemistry, water-rock interaction