Benchmarking the scientific output of industrial wastewater research in Arab world by utilizing bibliometric techniques

Abstract

Rapid population growth, worsening of the climate, and severity of freshwater scarcity are global challenges. In Arab world countries, where water resources are becoming increasingly scarce, the recycling of industrial wastewater could improve the efficiency of freshwater use. The benchmarking of scientific output of industrial wastewater research in the Arab world is an initiative that could support in shaping up and improving future research activities. This study assesses the scientific output of industrial wastewater research in the Arab world. A total of 2032 documents related to industrial wastewater were retrieved from 152 journals indexed in the Scopus databases; this represents 3.6 % of the global research output. The h-index of the retrieved documents was 70. The total number of citations, at the time of data analysis, was 34,296 with an average citation of 16.88 per document. Egypt, with a total publications of 655 (32.2 %), was ranked the first among the Arab countries followed by Saudi Arabia 300 (14.7 %) and Tunisia 297 (14.6 %). Egypt also had the highest h-index, assumed with Saudi Arabia, the first place in collaboration with other countries. Seven hundred fifteen (35.2 %) documents with 66 countries in Arab/non-Arab country collaborations were identified. Arab researchers collaborated mostly with researchers from France 239 (11.7 %), followed by the USA 127 (6.2 %). The top active journal was Desalination 126 (6.2 %), and the most productive institution was the National Research Center, Egypt 169 (8.3 %), followed by the King Abdul-Aziz University, Saudi Arabia 75 (3.7 %). Environmental Science was the most prevalent field of interest 930 (45.8 %). Despite the promising indicators, there is a need to close the gap in research between the Arab world and the other nations. Optimizing the investments and developing regional experiences are key factors to promote the scientific research.

Global research production in glyphosate intoxication from 1978 to 2015: A bibliometric analysis

“…Scopus database was selected because it is the largest database, 72 and majority of researchers in the field of bibliometrics have been widely used it in similar studies. 16,21,22,[73][74][75][76][77]…”

Investigating global trends in paraquat intoxication research from 1962 to 2015 using bibliometric analysis

“…The bibliometric indicators applied in the current study were similar to those used in previous bibliometric studies . Bibliometric analysis evaluates scientific research output through a series of procedures, such as institutions, citation analysis, year of publications to evaluate research trends, documents type, journals with their impact factors (IF), languages of publication, and co‐occurrence analysis of most frequently used terms, in order to detect most research topics related to paraquat intoxication.…”

Visualization and Mapping of Knowledge and Science Landscapes in Expert Systems With Applications Journal: A 30 Years’ Bibliometric Analysis

“…In the literature, many bibliometric studies have been used in a wide range of research areas including decision making (Shaher H. Zyoud & Fuchs-Hanusch, 2017a), clean production (L. Huang et al, 2020), medicine (Bokor-Billmann et al, 2020), climate change (Shaher H. Zyoud & Fuchs-Hanusch, 2020), environmental research (Sa’ed H. Zyoud et al, 2015; Shaher H. Zyoud et al, 2017; Shaher H. Zyoud & Zyoud, 2021), water and wastewater research (Shaher H. Zyoud et al, 2016; Shaher H. Zyoud & Fuchs-Hanusch, 2015, 2017b), and sustainable development (Prashar & Sunder, 2020).…”