Trends in scientific research on climate change in Agriculture and related areas (2005-2014)

Abstract

Climate change refers to an alteration in the state of the climate that can be identified by changes in the mean and the variability of its properties. Climate change reflects abnormal variations in the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the planet, such as on crop lands, reducing the annual yield. The objective of this paper was to contribute to a better understanding of the scientific knowledge in climate change and his effect concerning agriculture, as well as to investigate its evolution through the published papers. Items under study were obtained from Web of Science (WOS) platform from Thomson Reuters. A bibliometric and social network analyses was performed to determine indicators of scientific productivity, impact and collaboration between authors, institutions and countries. A subject analysis taking into account the key words assigned to papers and subject areas of journals was also carried out. A total of 1,471 articles were included in the selected subject categories in WOS since 2005 until 2014. More than 50% of the papers were published in the last three years. Papers have been published in 302 different journals. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the most productive institution (n=70), followed by Chinese Academy of Science (n=58) and the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA, France) (n=47). Canadian Forest Service is the institution with most citations (n=1,456). The most frequent keywords have been CO2, Adaptation, Model, Temperature and Impact. The network of collaboration between institutions and countries involve both centres from developed and developing countries and the central position of the United States, together with other leading countries such as China, Canada, Australia, Germany, and United Kingdom. 20 papers received more than 100 citations, most of them concerning on emerging climate change risks for forest, the impact on forest ecosystems, the effect on plant diseases and adaptation options.