Advances in Forest Management Research in the Context of Carbon Neutrality: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Climate change has become a threat to humanity, and achieving carbon neutrality is a worldwide objective. Forests are significant natural carbon sinks; forest ecosystems are one of the effective ways to mitigate climate change, and professional management may effectively contribute to achieving carbon neutrality goals. Using the bibliometrix R-package in R and CiteSpace for bibliometric analysis of research areas from general statistics and knowledge base perspectives, this study systematically reviewed the status, evolution, and research hotspots of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality based on 6112 papers published in this research area between 2002 and 2022. The results revealed: (1) The research on forest management in the context of carbon neutrality has rapidly developed with a high level of attention between 2002–2022. Furthermore, this field of research has become a well-established discipline. (2) Throughout the research history, there were five main research hotspots, which were the function of forest carbon sinks, scientific and rational forest management, forest ecosystem services, assessment of forest carbon sinks, and forest management models. (3) Potential future research avenues include the development of a new model of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality.

Carbon-Neutrality Research in China—Trends and Emerging Themes

“…The search results showed that the number of bibliometric studies in envi-ronmental science increased from 7 in 2005 to 1027 in 2022. Among all these bibliometric studies in environmental science, nine of them focused on carbon neutrality in the building sector [31], in the construction industry [32], from the global health perspective [33], from the forest management perspective [34], research changes due to the COVID-19 [35], and in a general sense [36][37][38][39]. Additionally, there was another bibliometric study on climate change that has implications on carbon neutrality [40].…”

Soluciones Basadas en La Naturaleza: Un Análisis Bibliométrico De Tendencias Pasadas, Presentes Y Futuras

“…Bibliometric analysis is a method that quantifies development of research in different fields and identify relevant trends; it studies the development process of academic research areas, recognize current pertinent themes, and predict future research directions (Aria & Cuccurullo, 2017). Along with visual mapping generated by bibliometric software, bibliometric analysis provides a systematic and detailed description of the knowledge context of the research area (Martínez et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2022). The research reported in this article could help researchers interested in working within the NbS research area to identify relevant topics, information needs or themes with most advances in the NbS area related to climate change, water, and biodiversity crisis at different scales and government levels.…”