Geodiversity has elements of exceptional scientific value that are considered to represent geoheritage, or geological heritage. One way to conserve and promote the knowledge of these elements is through the initiatives of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Global Geoparks, which, over a decade ago, began to notably highlight a new sustainable tourism alternative called geotourism, or geological tourism, that promotes the protection of the unique geological resources of territory and, at the same time, provides social, economic, and environmental benefits. This study aims to investigate the scientific information related to geotourism in the Scopus database through a bibliometric analysis, using the VOSviewer software, for the evaluation of the structure, conceptual evolution, and trends of geotourism following related publications. The research comprises four study phases: (i) search criteria of the research field; (ii) search and selection of documents; (iii) software and data extraction; and (iv) analysis of results and trends. The results present geotourism as a scientific discipline that is in a phase of exponential research growth and exhibits its scientific productivity from 1984 to 2019, where three main periods are differentiated: introduction, theoretical development, and diversification of information. The most active research area is geomorphological heritage, which is very far from the emerging line of research of engineering geology in geotourism. However, growing exploration during the last six years has generated the development of various geoscientific branches promoted by geotourism that, currently, present their research area trends such as geosites, geoheritages, and geoparks.

Since the Digne Convention in 1991, the literature related to Geoparks has gained a growing interest on the academy’s part, especially in achieving the preservation of geological interest sites through sustainable tourism. This article aims to provide an analysis of the academic research on Geoparks, based on publications in the Scopus database in the period 2002–2020. Bibliometric analysis methods and bibliographic display maps were examined using VOSviewer software. The bibliometric analysis process comprises three phases: (i) Search Criteria and Source Identification, (ii) software and data extraction, and (iii) data analysis and interpretation. The results show geoparks in full growth as a scientific discipline, thanks to the contribution of various authors, institutions, journals, and related topics that confirm the importance of this field of study. Additionally, bibliometric maps lead to an understanding of the intellectual structure of the subject, in which keyword co-occurrence analysis shows six main themes, ranging from ‘UNESCO Global Geoparks’ to ‘Geo-tourism-Sustainable Tourism’. this, combined with maps of co-citation, broadly exhibits this structure and development, showing areas of current interest and potential development, thus offering the latest knowledge on Geopark research worldwide. There is a growing concentration of research on geomorphological heritage and geo-tourism, focusing on methodologies to evaluate the specialities of this type of heritage and define the concept of geo-tourism; there is a great interest especially in the evaluation and identification of geo-site/geo-morphosites which try to eliminate subjectivity in methods and focus on sustainable development of the localities.

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Rockfall is one of the main phenomena in mountainous environments due to its fast and high speed of movement, its unpredictability, and, therefore, the difficulty of identifying signs of instability and detachment of the blocks. Compared to other types of sliding, the proportion of rockfall research is smaller and sometimes little known, but, in the last five years, rapid growth in this area has been shown. Therefore, this research aimed to review the intellectual structure of rockfall, through analysis of scientific production using bibliometric techniques that allow its analysis, knowledge, global evolution, and future trends in rockfall. The research methodology consists of three steps: (1) data compilation, (2) software and data cleaning, and (3) analysis, interpretation, and visualization. This analysis focuses on the period from 1975 to 2019. For the data, a total of 811 academic publications were retrieved from the Scopus database. The results indicate an increasing trend of annual publications on rockfall. This analysis reveals the main topics, countries, and most influential institutions in the world that have carried out relevant research in scientific publications; it also shows the journals that have the most publications. VOSviewer software was adopted to evaluate the co-occurrence of author keywords. Currently, the hotspots rockfall issues mainly include: hazard-risk assessment, remote sensing, and rockfall monitoring. Finally, this article analyzes the limitations of current research and proposes a future direction for the development of new research.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of academic research on volcanic geomorphology, through the use of bibliometric analysis and bibliographic visualization maps for the discernment of its growing interest by the academy in the last 30 years. It is sustained on the publications indexed in the Scopus database between 1956 and 2019, obtaining relevant information on scientific production, following the methodological structure of a rigorous bibliometric process, which ranges from the search for descriptors or keywords to the configuration of visualizations of tables and maps that allowed to consider the contributions by authors, institutions, journals and topics that have shaped the evolution of this field of study. The generations of bibliometric maps allowed understanding the intellectual structure of the field of study made up of 707 articles where the analysis of co-occurrence of author keywords showed six main lines of research that, combined with the co-citation maps, allowed understanding the breadth of intellectual structure. Extensive information is provided on the thematic that other investigations partially addressed or failed to capture their current status. Considering that the results allow us to identify areas of current interest and the potential of research in volcanic geomorphology.

The technical and scientific analysis regarding studies of the water surface or groundwater has increasingly taken on a great social impact, which has led to the creation of the term socio-hydrology. Since decision making has a greater weight, considering the social perspective, its study has become more important in the past 20 years. This article aims to carry out a bibliometric analysis related to socio-hydrology using the Scopus database and the application of VOSviewer software for the evaluation of the intellectual structure of socio-hydrology, its conceptual evolution, and its tendencies. The methodology considers (i) search criteria of the research field, (ii) search and document selection, (iii) software and data extraction, and (iv) analysis of results and trends. The results show us the term socio-hydrology as a new scientific discipline that has traces in the Scopus database in the past two decades. However, its application stems from recognising ancestral knowledge alongside other forms of knowledge. Socio-hydrology practice requires participatory models, where the community has a great influence, and for the most part, it guarantees results for the common good. The trend of this topic is growing and open to the criteria of sustainability.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of academic research on professional success, using the bibliometric analysis to understand the evolution of this field between the years 1990 and 2020. The information was obtained from the publications indexed in the Scopus database, under a rigorous bibliometric process that comprises five parts: (i) criteria search of the field, (ii) selection of database and documents, (iii) inclusion and selection criteria, (iv) software and data selection, and (v) analysis and results. The results show professional success as a scientific discipline in full exponential growth, which allows us to consider the main contributions of authors, institutions, and international contributions, as well as to consider the main themes that have shaped the intellectual structure of the subject through their visualization using bibliometric maps of co-citation and co-occurrence, which combined showed eight main lines of research. The results obtained allowed us to identify patterns of convergence and divergence in various topics, which allows obtaining current and diverse information on the state of the research field’s art.

Land cover is an important descriptor of the earth’s terrestrial surface. It is also crucial to determine the biophysical processes in global environmental change. Land-use change showcases the management of the land while revealing what motivated the alteration of the land cover. The type of land use can represent local economic and social benefits, framed towards regional sustainable development. The Amazon stands out for being the largest tropical forest globally, with the most extraordinary biodiversity, and plays an essential role in climate regulation. The present work proposes to carry out a bibliometric analysis of 1590 articles indexed in the Scopus database. It uses both Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer software for the evaluation of author keywords, authors, and countries. The method encompasses (i) search criteria, (ii) search and document compilation, (iii) software selection and data extraction, and (iv) data analysis. The results classify the main research fields into nine main topics with increasing relevance: ‘Amazon’, ‘deforestation’, ‘remote sensing’, ‘land use and land cover change’, and ‘land use’. In conclusion, the cocitation authors’ network reveals the development of such areas and the interest they present due to their worldwide importance.