Open AccessEvolution and structure of "Sustainable development"
Author(s) -
Antonio Pulgarín,
Pieta Eklund,
Ramón Garrote,
María Isabel Escalona Fernández
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
brazilian journal of information science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1981-1640
DOI - 10.36311/1981-1640.2015.v9n1.03.p22
Subject(s) - bibliometrics , subject (documents) , diversity (politics) , sustainable development , web of science , data science , field (mathematics) , library science , geography , ecology , social science , computer science , sociology , political science , mathematics , medline , biology , anthropology , law , pure mathematics
Sustainable development is an interdisciplinary subject that has developed dramatically over the last few decades. Bibliometrics offers quantitative analytical techniques with which to study the development and growth of research in this area. The information used for the present study was retrieved from the SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, and A&HCI (Thomson Reuters) databases. The search was made on the topic "Sustainable development", limited to Document Types (Article) and Time Span (1900-2013). The result was a total of 13 093 articles retrieved. During the last 10 years, the annual (exponential) growth rate has been 12%, corresponding to a 6-year doubling time. The productivity of the authors varied widely. The 23 290 occurrences of the articles were distributed among 218 Web of Science categories. "Environmental Sciences" was the top-ranked category, with 3427 occurrences (by itself accounting for more than 26% of the total, and presenting the greatest diversity), followed by "Environmental Studies" (2417), "Ecology" (1046), and "Economics" (933). The methodological approach taken in the present work could be used to describe the structure of any other scientific field and its relationships with other disciplines, and to visualize the relationship between the different WoS categories conforming the subject under study.