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.
•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.
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.
Display omitted
•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.
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 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.
•How the circular economy framework can manifest in agricultural systems is analysed.•A novel definition for circular agriculture production systems is provided.•The scope of circularity indicators ...with application in agriculture is evaluated.•The challenges of adopting circular economy models in agriculture is discussed.•Future lines of research and institutional changes are provided.
In the current context of resource scarcity, global climate change, environmental degradation, and increasing food demand, the circular economy (CE) represents a promising strategy for supporting sustainable, restorative, and regenerative agriculture. A review of the literature on CE confirms the initial hypothesis that the theoretical CE framework has not yet been adapted to the field of agriculture. Therefore, this paper overcomes this gap in two ways: i) by adjusting the general CE framework to the agricultural sector's specificities, and ii) by analyzing the scope of the indicators available for measuring agricultural production systems’ circularity performance in supporting decision-making processes. Accordingly, the different elements in the theoretical CE framework are adapted to agricultural production systems. One major contribution of this paper is the definition of CE applied to agriculture. In addition, the principles of CE are adapted to the field, and CE strategies for agricultural activity are defined. Forty-one circularity indicators for application in agricultural systems were also comprehensively assessed to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Building on the key findings, future research paths and changes at the institutional and normative levels are proposed to facilitate CE implementation in agricultural production systems. For example, internationally recognized standards and adequate units of measurement must be defined, to develop meaningful studies and determine agricultural activities’ circularity performance.
The analysis of innovations and technologies aimed at improving the sustainability of mining activity has become important in recent decades. The main objective of this article is to evaluate the ...dynamics of this line of research worldwide between 1998 and 2017. A bibliometric analysis and a systematic review of a sample of 2,562 articles was developed along with an analytical framework based on the mine life cycle and the three areas of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). The results show that sustainability research has grown at a much higher rate than that of mining and minerals research. The three journals that have published the most articles on this line of research are Journal of Cleaner Production, Environmental Science and Technology, and Gornyi Zhurnal, and the three countries with the highest number of published articles are the USA, China, and Germany. Some 60.9%, 30.9%, and 8.2% of the analysed mining innovations impact environmental, economic, and social sustainability, respectively, and some 7.1% affect the exploration phase, 84.8% the exploitation phase, and 8.1% the closure phase. The analysis of issues related to environmental sustainability becomes more relevant as the exploration phase moves on to exploitation and closure. The primary challenges and future lines of research are in reducing energy use and increasing the use of renewable sources, analysing the social sustainability of current mining activities, and achieving clean production in the development of new mining activity environments (ice-covered areas and the ocean floor). This work provides new perspectives on the analysis and integral assessment of innovations and technologies aimed at making mining activity more sustainable, particularly where the contributions to the environmental, economic, and social fields are valued.
Display omitted
•Innovation and technology are key factors for mining sustainability.•A systematic review and bibliometric analysis have been performed on 2562 articles.•Mining expansion to icy and ocean soil presents challenges to cleaner production.•The pending subject of mining activity related to sustainability is social field.
Sustainability of water use in agriculture is a line of research that has gained in importance worldwide. The present study reviewed 25 years of international research on sustainable water use in ...agriculture. A bibliometric analysis was developed to sample 2084 articles. Results indicate exponential growth in the number of articles published per year, with research in this field having acquired a global scale. Environmental Science and Agricultural and Biological Sciences are the main categories. Three journals—Agricultural Water Management, Water Resources Management and Nongye Gongcheng Xuebao Agricultural Engineering—published the most of the articles. China, the U.S., Australia, India and Germany produced the most research. The three institutions that published the most articles were all Chinese (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Agricultural University and Northwest A&F University). The most cited authors were Ridoutt, Hoekstra and Zhang. The keywords most frequently used include: water-use, irrigation, water-management, water-supply, and sustainability. A network map shows three clusters that focus on the environmental, agronomic and management aspects. The findings of this study can assist researchers in this field by providing an overview of research on the sustainability of hydric resources.
This paper aims to study the determinants of the governance model of water resources in the agriculture of the Hermosillo-Coast (Mexico). To achieve this objective, a literature review, in-depth ...interviews and a workshop were carried out. The results show that the main threats to the system come from the model of granting concessions for access to water resources, the lack of supervision by the competent authority and the control of a group of stakeholders over water in relation to the rest of the interested parties. Finally, measures aimed at improving the sustainability of agricultural activity in the area are proposed.
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.
PDF
