Growing social awareness of the need to adequately treat mining waste in order to protect the environment has led to an increase in the research in this field. The aim of this study was to analyze ...the dynamics of the research focused on mining waste and its sustainable management on a worldwide scale from 1988 to 2017. A systematic review and a bibliometric analysis of 3577 articles were completed. The results show that research into mining waste has increased, with studies focusing on waste management accounting for almost 40% of the total. The most productive journals in this field were Applied Geochemistry and Science of the Total Environment. The five most productive countries were the United States, Canada, Spain, Australia, and China. Works on the sustainable management of mining waste were in the minority, but it is an area of research that has considerable potential given the growing social awareness of the environmental repercussions of mining activities and the demands for increasingly sustainable practices. The findings of this study could prove useful for studies into mine waste, as they depict a global view of this line of research.
Water use efficiency in agriculture (WUEA) has become a priority given increasing limitations on hydric resources. As a result, this area of research has increased in importance, becoming one of the ...most prolific lines of study. The main aim of this study was to present a review of worldwide WUEA research over the last 30 years. A bibliometric analysis was developed based on the Scopus database. The sample included 6063 articles. The variables analyzed were: articles per year, category, journal, country, institution, author, and keyword. The results indicate that a remarkable growth in the number of articles published per year is occurring. The main category is environmental science and the main journal Agricultural Water Management. The countries with the highest number of articles were China, the United States of America, and India. The institution that published the most articles was the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the authors from China also were the most productive. The most frequently used keywords were irrigation, crop yield, water supply, and crops. The findings of this study can assist researchers in this field by providing an overview of worldwide research.
•Research on sustainable land use in agriculture during last 30 years is analysed.•Four main research lines detected: agronomy, water, land use and sustainable development.•The development of ...production systems based on circular economy models is needed.•Further knowledge about stakeholders' preferences and attitudes is required.•Management practices and crops must be adapted to the new climatic conditions.
Currently, 42% of the world's population depends on agriculture for its livelihood, and agriculture drives the economy of most developing countries. Therefore, human life on our planet depends on its sustainability. Research on sustainable land use in agriculture has been gaining increasing relevance since the term ‘sustainable development’ was coined with the Brundtland Report in 1987. The objective of this study is to analyse the evolution of this line of research worldwide to date. A bibliometric analysis of the existing articles from the period 1988–2017 was conducted. The results show that this topic has been gaining relevance in land use studies. Extensive cooperative networks and a high level of international collaboration exist between the different agents involved in land use studies. The analysis of key words has shown four main research lines of inquiry: agronomy, which focuses on soil processes and the study of different crops; sustainable water management for irrigation; the analysis of changes in land use, especially as related to the increase in population, the need for supplies, and the expansion of urban land; and sustainable development in new forms of agrarian management, such as organic farming, permaculture, and multifunctional systems. The regions serving as the object of these studies are mainly the Americas, Asia, Oceania, and Western Europe. This highlights a research gap in regions such as Russia, the Middle East, and Africa. Future research should examine the development of circular economic systems in agricultural activity, perceptions and preferences of stakeholders, inclusion of the sustainability objective in planning urban spaces, improvement in irrigation water use efficiency, use of nonconventional water sources in agriculture, and development of management practises and crops that can adapt to the impact of climate change.
Within a context of scarce water resources for agriculture, rainwater harvesting constitutes a promising alternative that has been studied by different disciplines in recent years. This article ...analyses the dynamics of global research on rainwater harvesting for agricultural irrigation over the last two decades. To do this, qualitative systematic analysis and quantitative bibliometric analysis have been carried out. The results reveal that this line of research is becoming increasingly important within research on irrigation. Environmental sciences and agricultural and biological sciences are the most relevant subject areas. Agricultural Water Management, Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, and Irrigation and Drainage are the journals that have published the most articles on the subject. India, China, the United States (USA), South Africa, and the Netherlands are the countries that lead this line of research. Although significant progress has been made in this subject area, it is necessary to increase the number of studies on the capacity of rainwater harvesting systems to cover irrigation needs in different farming contexts, the factors that determine their adoption by farmers, the economic and financial feasibility of their implementation, and their contribution to mitigating global climate change.
Water use and sustainable development are pressing issues that affect the overall global system. The economic analysis of water use has been receiving increasing attention among researchers and has ...become an important field of research in recent decades. The main objective of this paper is to analyse the worldwide dynamics of economic studies on water use in the last 30 years and especially on its sustainable use. A systematic review and a bibliometric analysis were developed to sample 1022 articles. The results indicate that the number of articles published has increased steadily each year, especially in the last five years, accounting for 45% of all the articles. The three most prominent journals in this field are Journal of Cleaner Production, Resources Conservation and Recycling and Ecological Economics. Of the articles studied, 23.5% were published in the United States, 13.6% in Australia and 8.1% in China. The need to create comprehensive and multidisciplinary frameworks of analysis has been detected in order to develop holistic models for a sustainable management of water resources. These models must analyse supply and demand, non-conventional water sources and a global approach to the questions of water. In short, this study is that it can be stated that the economic analysis of water use is a field of research which is growing worldwide, and within this research field the analysis devoted to sustainability is increasingly relevant. The findings of this study can be useful to water use researchers by providing an overview of the worldwide research on this line of investigation.
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•1022 articles on the Economics of Water Use are reviewed.•An analysis of the productivity, impact and structure of the research is carried out.•USA, Australia, China, Spain, Netherlands are the most productive countries.•UK, France, Netherlands and China are the most collaborative countries.•The analysis of water use efficiency evolves to the study of water use sustainability.
Greenhouse farming is an agricultural management system that has demonstrated its efficiency in intensifying food production. These systems constitute a feasible alternative for ensuring food supply, ...which is one of the greatest challenges faced by humankind in the twenty-first century. Technology has been able to meet the challenges related to greenhouse farming in both contributing to overcoming its limitations, correcting adverse impacts and ensuring system sustainability. The objective of this article is to analyse the global research trends in greenhouse technology over the last two decades, in order to identify the main driving agents, the most outstanding research lines and possible gaps in the literature. Different methodologies have been used for the analysis; both quantitative and qualitative. The principal results show that there are different relevant lines of research related to different aspects of greenhouse farming: the use of water for irrigation, the design of the optimum structure of the greenhouse, conserving the soil in the best growing conditions, energy consumption of the system as a whole, climate control within the facility and pest control. The research is characterized by the being composed largely of ad hoc studies, which hinders the international collaboration between researchers and institutions. The research approach has shifted from being focused on increasing production and cost savings to aspects related to resource conservation and sustainability.
The relevance of forests to sustain human well-being and the serious threats they face have led to a notable increase of research works on forest ecosystem services during the last few years. This ...paper analyses the worldwide research dynamics on forest ecosystem services in the period from 1998 to 2017. A bibliometric analysis of 4284 articles was conducted. The results showed that the number of published research articles has especially increased during the last five years. In total, 68.63% of the articles were published in this period. This research line experiences a growing trend superior to the general publishing trend on forest research. In spite of this increase, its relative significance within the forest research is still limited. The most productive subject areas corresponded to Environmental Science, Agricultural and Biological Sciences and Social Sciences Economic topics are understudied. The scientific production is published in a wide range of journals. The three first publishing countries are United States, China and the United Kingdom. The most productive authors are attached to diverse research centres and their contributions are relatively recent. A high level of international cooperation has been observed between countries, institutions and authors. The findings of this study are useful for researchers since they give them an overview of the worldwide research trends on forest ecosystem services.
Irrigated agriculture plays a fundamental role as a supplier of food and raw materials. However, it is also the world’s largest water user. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number ...of studies analyzing agricultural irrigation from the perspective of sustainability with a focus on its environmental, economic, and social impacts. This study seeks to analyze the dynamics of global research in sustainable irrigation in agriculture between 1999 and 2018, including the main agents promoting it and the topics that have received the most attention. To do this, a review and a bibliometric analysis were carried out on a sample of 713 articles. The results show that sustainability is a line of study that is becoming increasingly more prominent within research in irrigation. The study also reveals the existence of substantial differences and preferred topics in the research undertaken by different countries. The priority issues addressed in the research were climatic change, environmental impact, and natural resources conservation; unconventional water resources; irrigation technology and innovation; and water use efficiency. Finally, the findings indicate a series of areas related to sustainable irrigation in agriculture in which research should be promoted.
In the Campo de Níjar (southeast Spain), an intensive horticulture model under plastic has been developed based on the use of groundwater. For many years, aquifers have been overexploited, almost ...generating an environmental collapse. The construction of a desalination plant was planned to improve this situation and to achieve sustainable aquifer management. However, the aquifer is still being overexploited, since farmers scarcely use desalinated seawater for irrigation. In this paper, farmers irrigating with desalinated seawater are characterized, since they contribute to aquifer sustainability. The study aimed to identify the variables which condition the use of this water resource, as well as the kinds of incentives that encourage this option. For this purpose, a survey was undertaken within a sample of 110 farmers. A cluster analysis and a binary logistic regression were employed. The results from the cluster analysis allowed the characterization of farmers who use desalinated seawater for irrigation. Furthermore, the regression model showed the variables that determine a more intensive use of this irrigation source, such as crop diversification, availability of different water resources and the conductivity of aquifer water available for irrigation. The incentives promoting the use of desalinated seawater for irrigation that most encourage farmers are the implementation of tax relief, price reductions and the obligation to install rainwater collection systems.
In recent decades several theories on rural development have been expounded in an attempt to explain some experiences of regional economic growth or to provide recommendations on rural development ...policies. The objective of this article is to revise this open debate and attempt to introduce more concerns about the delimitation of theories and the mosaic of rural areas in Europe. In this context the present article analyses the paradigmatic development of Almería (south‐east Spain) based primarily on agriculture in a process categorised as an economic miracle. Some authors have attempted to explain this success by mechanisms associated with the endogenous development approach. Nevertheless, this study reveals that Almería's development experience can be categorised as a miscellaneous one, and a mixture of development approaches should therefore be considered as opposed to unidirectional models. This also shows the importance of keeping open the debate on the impact of agrarian activity on rural development.
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