Phytoplankton in lake water quality assessment: a review of scientific literature based on bibliometric and network techniques

Fitoplâncton na avaliação da qualidade da água de lagos: uma revisão da literatura científica baseada em técnicas bibliométricas e de rede

Abstract

Aim  This study aims to analyze the scientific literature on phytoplankton in assessing lake water quality, based on bibliometric and network techniques.

Methods  PRISMA criteria were adopted to produce reliable results. The Scopus and Web of Science databases were consulted to retrieve the documents to be studied. The number of publications, citations and bibliographic coupling were techniques used to identify relevant journals, countries, authors, and articles. The conceptual evolution was analyzed by keywords co-occurrence and thematic mapping.

Results  Based on 2429 documents selected from the 1973-2023 annual period, the main results indicated 519 journals, 6450 authors, 54907 references, and 4844 keyword authors, among others. The annual growth index was 10.27%, reflecting the upward trend at the time. Erick Jeppesen resulted as the top influential author, China leaded in publications and collaborations with The United States of America. Hydrobiologia was the top journal. Top influential articles content theme related to cyanobacterial blooms. According to the results of the analysis of the conceptual framework, phytoplankton, water quality, eutrophication, and cyanobacteria were the most relevant themes. Furthermore, the trending topics were mainly climate change and degradation.

Conclusions  This comprehensive analysis allowed us to interpret the development of research related to the subject of assessing lake water quality.

Keywords:  bibliometric analysis; eutrophication; lake ecosystem; network techniques; phytoplankton; water quality