A Scientometric Review of Research Status on Unfrozen Soil Water

Abstract

Unfrozen soil water affects the physical, chemical, hydrological, and mechanical properties of frozen soils, and climate change makes these relationships more complicated. The objective of this study was to investigate the research status of unfrozen soil water using scientometrics. Publications on unfrozen water in frozen soil (UWFS) retrieved from the Web of Science were analyzed with scientometric software tools including VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and HistCite Pro. The annual publication trend, co-authorship of authors, organizations, and countries, and the co-occurrence of keywords were analyzed. The most utilized journals and high-impact publications were identified. The results showed that 2007 (the year the “Bali Road Map” was released) represents a turning point (from slow to rapid) in the development of research on unfrozen water in frozen soil. Researchers and organizations from China and the United States are the major contributors, while Cold Regions Science and Technology is the most utilized journal for publishing research pertaining to UWFS. Currently, there is still a lack of reliable and user-friendly methods and techniques for measuring unfrozen water content. Future efforts are required to understand the mechanisms governing the magnitude of unfrozen water content and to develop new approaches to accurately and rapidly measure unfrozen water content in both laboratory and in situ.

Water Migration and Segregated Ice Formation in Frozen Ground: Current Advances and Future Perspectives

“…In laboratory experiments, the ice content is usually estimated by subtracting the unfrozen water content from the total water content. The latter could be directly measured by mature methods, such as the neutron moisture meter method (NMM) (Sun et al, 2021) and gamma-ray attenuation method (Zhou et al, 2014) for the total water content, TDR (time-domain reflectometer) method, FDR (frequency-domain reflectometer) method, and NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) method for unfrozen water content (Feng et al, 2021). However, there is still no suitable method to monitor the ice content, water migration, and their spatial variation under field conditions.…”

Scientometric Analysis and Systematic Review of Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing of Polymers

“…Over these 100 years, the studies of scientometrics moved from the unconscious to consciousness, from qualitative research to quantitative research, and from external description to comprehensive study disclosing the inherent properties of scientific production [ 39 ]. In the recent past, the power of scientometrics was demonstrated in different research areas, such as computer vision in construction [ 34 ], construction and demolition waste [ 40 ], virtual reality applications for the built environment [ 36 ], leak detection and localization [ 41 ], smart city [ 42 ], sustainability and sustainable development [ 43 ], off-site construction [ 44 ], public-private partnerships [ 45 ], oral health literacy [ 46 ], carbon footprints [ 47 ], recommendation systems [ 48 ], cloud computing [ 49 ], and unfrozen soil water [ 50 ]. From these literature reviews, the modern scientometric analysis allows us to map knowledge structures, access scientific contribution, find scientific development, and identify emerging trends within a given research field [ 51 ].…”

A bibliometric study about unconventional food plants

“…Scientometrics or bibliometric analysis is a scientific statistical and quantitative evaluation of publications within a defined topic, based on citation index data. It can be used to identify articles of interest, detect research foci, locate the most relevant journals in the area under study, and analyze interrelationships between authors from different institutions and countries (Feng et al, 2021). This method organizes the existing literature, showing its trajectory of publications, as well as traditional and emerging fields of research (Sharifi et al, 2021).…”