A Bibliometric analysis of mountain research literature on journal of mountain research and development: Current situation and future directions

Abstract

Academic studies on mountains have increased since the 1990s. The aim of this study is to examine the current situation and development of the international literature on mountainous areas. The Mountain Research and Development Journal was determined as a sample and formed the data set of 1574 articles published in the journal. Network analysis method was applied using VOSviewer v.1.6 program. To conduct the research, only the terms in the keywords were used as the unit of analysis. In this context, frequency, relationality, clustering and time trend analyses were performed, respectively. When the clustering of the most used concepts in the keywords of the articles published in the MRD journal according to the network analysis was examined, eight clusters were determined. It turned out that the most frequently used concept among these clusters was "climate change". When the time trend is examined according to the network analysis of the concepts, studies on the effects of climate change have gained importance, especially in the last 10 years. Where there are conceptual transformations in the studies carried out on mountain slopes in certain years, anthropic emphases have come to the forefront rather than natural conditions.