Can COVID-19 and environmental research in developing countries support these countries to meet the environmental challenges induced by the pandemic?

Abstract

Meeting the huge impact of COVID-19 on the environment requires better research on pandemic and pollution. What is the research capacity of the COVID-19 and environment in developing countries? Can this research capacity support developing countries to deal with the environmental challenges induced by the pandemic? This work is addressed to comprehensively assess the research capacity of the COVID-19 and environment in developing countries using bibliometric analysis techniques and content analysis approach to mining the Web of Science database. The results of data mining were unexpected: the global leader of the COVID-19 and environmental research was not these developed countries, but these developing countries so far, the end of 2020. Developing countries have published more papers on the pandemic and environment than developed countries, and developing countries also dominate pandemic and environmental research in terms of research institutions and authors. The results showed that (i) the impact of COVID-19 and the environment was bidirectional; (ii) energy consumption has posed great impact on environment; (iii) application of big data and artificial intelligence played an important role in improving environmental quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, policy recommendations such as formulating relevant policies and environmental standards, strengthening international exchanges and cooperation, and adjusting and improving energy consumption structure that were put forward for developing countries to meet the environmental challenges induced by the pandemic were offered. Graphical abstract

COVID-19 Pandemic Related Research in Africa: Bibliometric Analysis of Scholarly Output, Collaborations and Scientific Leadership

“…This particular focus can be understood considering that the global burden of disease in African countries is mostly generated by communicable disorders, which can be prevented by implementing public health interventions. It is interesting that in these research topics and fields, African countries as well as other developing countries and territories have performed better with respect to developed countries [21].…”

COVID-19’s fear-uncertainty effect on green supply chain management and sustainability performances: the moderate effect of corporate social responsibility

“…The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global supply chains (SCs) worldwide (Grida et al 2020). With the governmentimposed lockdown and tight travel bans, the disruptions to the SCs grown at an alarming rate (De Vito and Gómez 2020; Wang and Zhang 2021). According to El Baz and Ruel (2020) and Jian et al (2020), this pandemic created an environment of fear and uncertainty which triggered problems of material deficits, late deliveries, fragile transportation networks, and other issues, making a lot of researchers and industry experts already pointed the extraordinary impact of COVID-19 on the global SCs' shape and structure.…”

“…Jian et al (2020) argued that organizations' fear and uncertainty toward the pandemic led to rethinking the green and ecological practices toward SCs during the current crisis to capture the opportunities in the current situation to enhance the GSCM. Also, Govindan et al (2020) and Wang and Zhang (2021) stated that COVID-19 stimulated people to behave more ethically and led them to reconsider the green and social practices toward SCs.…”

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