Urban resilience is concerned by the scholars in the world, especially in light of new uncertainty challenges for cities such as natural disasters and man-made disasters. We performed a bibiometric analysis on urban resilience research based on the 1296 articles in the SCI, SCIE, SSCI and A&HCI database from 1986 to 2015. Publication trends were discussed in HistCite to reveal the publication outputs, subject categories and publication pattern, most prolific authors and international productivity. The document co-citation analysis was made in CiteSpace III to explore the research basements and research trajectories, emerging trends and new developments. Growth of article output has emerged since 2003. Environmental studies and environmental sciences came out the most urban resilience articles. Ecology and Society was the most productive journal in this area. Barthel was the most prolific author. USA and UK were the most productive countries, and Arizona State University was the most high-productive institution, but the cooperation is lacking in the worldwide. Two streams were detected from the co-cited papers. “Governance”, “climatechange” and “city” are research hotspots of urban resilience according to the strongest citation bursts of keywords, and Folke’s paper published in 2006 has the strongest bursts. Future research will focus on ecosystem service, adaptive capacity and human-dominated ecosystem.
Urbanization is a vital social development in the 21st century, as the global proportion of urban population has increased from 28.3% to 50% in 2010. While man is facing all sorts of emerging uncertainty challenges in social progress, such as natural disasters (e.g. earthquake, flood, drought, climate change, etc.) and man-made disasters (e.g. environmental pollution, war, terrorism, etc.). Urban resilience is a significant capacity to adjust to stress from hazards and to recover quickly from their impacts from catastrophe. Indeed, urban resilience can be seen in the context of risk and vulnerability assessments, institutional and social governance structures, resilience in (or of) different sectors (e.g. ecosystem, economy, etc.), and transformations of urban areas. In other words, to strengthen urban resilience is beneficial to reduce the influence of urban disaster.
To develop opportunities for the sustainable development of cities, researchers from multiple disciplines are studying the feedback, dynamics, and behavior of urban vulnerability and urban resilience in the face of urban crisis, such as the axioms and mean of urban resilience (Campanella, 2006; Surjan et al., 2011; Wilkinson, 2012; Childers et al., 2014) , climate change and urban resilience (Grimm et al., 2008; Leichenko, 2011; Tyler & Moench, 2012) , spatial planning and urban resilience in the flood risk (Deppisch & Schaerffer, 2011; Cruz et al., 2013; Lu, 2014) , urban resilience and human-dominated ecosystems (Ernstson et al., 2010) , urban infrastructure systems (Wilbanks et al., 2012; Ouyang & Wang, 2015) , urban resilience index (Attoh-Okine et al., 2009; Sellberg et al., 2015) , urban social resilience (Cutter et al., 2010; Tate, 2012) and resilient cities (Godschalk, 2003; Pickett et al., 2004; Desouza & Flanery, 2013; Vale, 2014) . Further, topics on urban resilience and its related domain have become hot-debated focus (Beilin & Wilkinson, 2015) . It is necessary to describe the status qua on urban resilience studies for exploring the research basements and research fronts.
Some scholars have made some reviews on urban resilience or resilient cities (Lang, 2011; Müller, 2011; Chelleri, 2012; Jha et al., 2013; Cartalis, 2014) , and bibliometric analysis could display the research performance and trajectories, emerging trends and new developments (Chen, 2006; Chen et al., 2014; Wang & Liu, 2014; Kim & Chen, 2015) , but a review used bibliomeric analysis has been not much. However some researchers focused on resilience research (Xu et al., 2015; Meerow & Newell, 2015) with bibliometric analysis. These studies could not get the map of the urban resilience research.
In this article, we will provide a comprehensive survey of the advance of urban resilience. More specifically, it aims to 1) present mainly publication outputs, subject categories and publication pattern, most-prolific authors and international productivity; 2) emerge the research basements and research trajectories by visualizing the citation network using CiteSpace III; 3) identify the research trends and new developments according to the keywords and cited references with strongest citation bursts.
We established an analysis database of urban resilience from the Science Citation Index (SCI), Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) supported by Web of Science. “Urban resilience” or “resilient city” or “resilient cities” were used as keywords to search from 1st January, 1986 to 5th August, 2015. Then we removed duplicate articles and got 1296 related articles.
Many available tools are used by bibliometric research, such as HistCite, CiteSpace, VOSviewer and Sci2 etc. HistCite is a flexible tool to provide research perspectives and information in our analysis database (Garfield, 2009) through GCS, LCS, LCR, LCS/t and GCS/t indicators, such as to analyze the classical literatures, to look for the productivity authors and institutions. Meanwhile, CiteSpace is popular to study the knowledge domain in a scientific field (Chen et al., 2014) , can be used to analyze the knowledge basement and development track, to detect emerging trends and new developments.
There has become a rapid increase on urban resilience work since 2003, as showed in
Regarding publishing language, eight languages were discovered among 1296 articles. 1275, or 98.4%, of the articles were submitted in English. A few articles were published in Spanish (8), French (5), Portuguese (3), Slovenian (2), German (1), Polish (1) and Russian (1).
Several ISI-defined subject categories were included, such as environmental studies, environmental sciences, urban studies, ecology, geography etc. We presented the uppermost 10 subject categories in
Web of science subject category | TA | % |
---|---|---|
Environmental studies | 260 | 20.06 |
Environmental sciences | 203 | 15.66 |
Urban studies | 176 | 13.58 |
Ecology | 141 | 10.88 |
Geography | 128 | 9.88 |
Public environmental occupational health | 109 | 8.41 |
Water resources | 101 | 7.79 |
Geosciences multidisciplinary | 69 | 5.32 |
Psychology developmental | 69 | 5.32 |
Planning development | 65 | 5.02 |
TA, the number of articles on one subject category.
These 1296 urban resilience articles were issued in 604 ISI-indexed journals. Maximum 18 active journals (2.98% of the 604 journals) published 741 papers (21.84%) out of a total of 1296 articles, while 388 journals (64.24%) published only one paper.
3624 authors concentrated on the urban resilience and published related articles. However, only 67 scholars produced more than 4 papers, accounting for 1.85% of the total scholars, 3267 authors only had one article.
# | Journal name | TA | TA% | LCS | LCS/t | GCS | GCS/t | LCR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ecology and Society | 34 | 2.62 | 0 | 0 | 543 | 77.76 | 22 |
2 | Environment and Urbanization | 28 | 2.16 | 43 | 11.91 | 218 | 39.14 | 20 |
3 | Landscape and Urban Planning | 25 | 1.93 | 60 | 10.10 | 300 | 54.46 | 33 |
4 | Sustainability | 19 | 1.47 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 8.33 | 18 |
5 | Urban Studies | 18 | 1.39 | 12 | 5.10 | 147 | 30.44 | 20 |
6 | Cities | 17 | 1.31 | 12 | 4.75 | 62 | 22.95 | 33 |
7 | Global Environmental Change-Human and Policy Dimensions | 15 | 1.16 | 38 | 8.08 | 192 | 44.21 | 20 |
8 | Natural Hazards | 14 | 1.08 | 9 | 1.86 | 92 | 17.45 | 1 |
9 | Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences | 14 | 1.08 | 8 | 2.33 | 39 | 8.88 | 14 |
10 | Building Research And Information | 13 | 1.00 | 5 | 1.72 | 47 | 11.21 | 11 |
11 | Habitat International | 12 | 0.93 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 6.55 | 13 |
12 | Water Science and Technology | 12 | 0.93 | 8 | 1.67 | 77 | 11.23 | 3 |
13 | PLoS ONE | 11 | 0.85 | 0 | 0 | 45 | 16.00 | 1 |
14 | Urban Education | 11 | 0.85 | 5 | 0.79 | 149 | 15.70 | 6 |
15 | American Journal of Community Psychology | 10 | 0.77 | 33 | 2.51 | 251 | 23.15 | 15 |
16 | Development and Psychopathology | 10 | 0.77 | 44 | 2.31 | 780 | 52.23 | 3 |
17 | Environmental Hazards-Human and Policy Dimensions | 10 | 0.77 | 4 | 0.62 | 34 | 6.04 | 7 |
18 | Urban Ecosystems | 10 | 0.77 | 2 | 0.67 | 36 | 10.60 | 2 |
TA, total number of articles; TA%, the percentage in the 3085 articles; LCS, local citation scores; LCS/t, local citation scores per year; GCS, global citation scores; GCS/t, global citation scores per year; LCR, local citied references.
# | Author name | Full name | TA | LCS | LCS/t | GCS | GCS/t | Institute |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Barthel S | Stephan Barthel | 10 | 47 | 11.67 | 245 | 48.70 | Stockholm University |
2 | Shaw R | Rajib Shaw | 10 | 4 | 0.79 | 18 | 4.36 | Kyoto University |
3 | Bail K | Kylie Bail | 9 | 8 | 1.83 | 69 | 15.75 | Deakin University |
4 | Cowen EL | Emory L. Cowen | 9 | 70 | 3.28 | 342 | 16.02 | University of Rochester |
5 | Wyman PA | Peter A. Wyman | 9 | 70 | 3.28 | 342 | 16.02 | University of Rochester |
6 | Colding J | Johan Colding | 8 | 39 | 7.67 | 218 | 32.53 | Stockholm University |
7 | Elmqvist T | Thomas Elmqvist | 8 | 33 | 6.00 | 168 | 23.57 | Stockholm University |
8 | Work WC | William C. Work | 8 | 68 | 3.15 | 336 | 15.62 | University of Rochester |
9 | Brown RR | Rebekah R. Brown | 7 | 7 | 2.14 | 36 | 10.10 | Monash University |
10 | Ernstson H | Henrik Ernstson | 7 | 33 | 6.83 | 183 | 34.38 | Stockholm University |
11 | Masten AS | Ann S. Mastern | 7 | 18 | 1.21 | 458 | 36.64 | University of Minnesota Twin Cities |
12 | Bradley B | Bekh Bradley | 6 | 2 | 0.40 | 37 | 7.97 | Emory University School of Medicine |
13 | Broto VC | Vanesa Castan Broto | 6 | 5 | 2.00 | 44 | 16.5 | University College London |
14 | Crawford D | David Crawford | 6 | 7 | 1.58 | 59 | 12.58 | Deakin University |
15 | Pickett STA | Steward T.A. Pickett | 6 | 36 | 4.58 | 131 | 20.00 | Cary Institution of Ecosystem Studies |
16 | Ressler KJ | Kerry J. Ressler | 6 | 3 | 0.54 | 63 | 10.82 | Emory University School of Medicine |
17 | Wallace R | Rodrick Wallace | 6 | 9 | 0.68 | 51 | 4.41 | New York State Psychiatric Institution |
18 | Zevenbergen C | Chris Zevenbergen | 6 | 11 | 1.86 | 47 | 8.13 | UNESCO-IHE |
TA, total number of articles; LCS, local citation score; LCS/t, local citation scores per year; GCS, global citation score; GCS/t, global citation scores per year.
The 1296 urban resilience research articles were scattered geographic distribution in the world, and gathered mainly in the developed country. Five countries or regions contribute to the urban resilience research articles more than 50 papers, most of the countries or territories published less than 10 articles. United State was the most industrious country with 510 articles, and got the largest LCS (452) and GCS (8391), and had the largest average citation rate of LCS (0.89) and GCS (16.45). UK was the succeeding productive country with 203 articles, and received the second LCS (134) and GCS (1987). Australia was the third productive country (125), followed Canada (80) and Netherlands (52). Other prolific countries included Sweden (46), Germany (43), China (39), South Africa (39), and so on. More interestingly, the result confirmed that most of developed countries with post-urbanization paid attention to the urban resilience specially, and just a few developing countries with rapid urbanization has begun to emphasize the related research, such as China, South Africa, Brazil, India (see
Institution distribution of urban resilience research was gathered, and mainly concentrated in several developed countries, such as USA, UK and Australia.
According to the
# | Country | TA | TA% | LCS | LCS/TA | GCS | GCS/TA |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | USA | 510 | 39.35 | 452 | 0.89 | 8391 | 16.45 |
2 | UK | 203 | 15.66 | 134 | 0.66 | 1987 | 9.79 |
3 | Australia | 125 | 9.65 | 47 | 0.38 | 773 | 6.18 |
4 | Canada | 80 | 6.17 | 11 | 0.14 | 535 | 6.69 |
5 | Netherlands | 52 | 4.01 | 34 | 0.65 | 288 | 5.54 |
6 | Sweden | 46 | 3.55 | 90 | 1.96 | 573 | 12.46 |
7 | Germany | 43 | 3.32 | 16 | 0.37 | 219 | 5.09 |
8 | China | 39 | 3.01 | 19 | 0.49 | 303 | 7.77 |
9 | South Africa | 39 | 3.01 | 47 | 1.21 | 261 | 6.69 |
10 | Italy | 38 | 2.93 | 11 | 0.29 | 233 | 6.13 |
11 | Spain | 36 | 2.78 | 6 | 0.17 | 272 | 7.56 |
12 | France | 31 | 2.39 | 26 | 0.84 | 195 | 6.29 |
13 | Japan | 23 | 1.77 | 5 | 0.22 | 38 | 1.65 |
14 | Brazil | 19 | 1.47 | 0 | 0.00 | 171 | 9.00 |
15 | New Zealand | 19 | 1.47 | 9 | 0.47 | 296 | 15.58 |
16 | Belgium | 16 | 1.23 | 4 | 0.25 | 86 | 5.38 |
17 | India | 16 | 1.23 | 4 | 0.25 | 68 | 4.25 |
18 | Switzerland | 16 | 1.23 | 4 | 0.25 | 173 | 10.81 |
19 | Israel | 14 | 1.08 | 5 | 0.36 | 129 | 9.21 |
20 | Portugal | 11 | 0.85 | 2 | 0.18 | 44 | 4.00 |
TA, total number of articles; TA%, the percentage of the 3085 article; LCS, local citation score; GCS, global citation score.
# | Institution | TA | TA% | LCS | GCS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Arizona State University | 27 | 2.08 | 47 | 727 |
2 | Stockholm University | 24 | 1.85 | 83 | 501 |
3 | University of Maryland | 21 | 1.62 | 9 | 484 |
4 | Yale University | 21 | 1.62 | 27 | 443 |
5 | University College London | 20 | 1.54 | 20 | 180 |
6 | Columbia University | 19 | 1.47 | 30 | 439 |
7 | Monash University | 19 | 1.47 | 16 | 110 |
8 | University Melbourne | 18 | 1.39 | 4 | 122 |
9 | Harvard University | 16 | 1.23 | 4 | 176 |
10 | US Forest Service | 16 | 1.23 | 7 | 130 |
11 | University Birmingham | 15 | 1.16 | 16 | 85 |
12 | University N Carolina | 15 | 1.16 | 22 | 351 |
13 | University Wisconsin | 15 | 1.16 | 10 | 339 |
14 | Emory University | 14 | 1.08 | 10 | 255 |
15 | University Colorado | 14 | 1.08 | 13 | 675 |
16 | University Manchester | 14 | 1.08 | 30 | 154 |
17 | Deakin University | 13 | 1.00 | 8 | 86 |
18 | Kings College London | 13 | 1.00 | 5 | 187 |
19 | Kyoto University | 13 | 1.00 | 5 | 28 |
20 | University British Columbia | 13 | 1.00 | 3 | 127 |
21 | University California Berkeley | 13 | 1.00 | 11 | 198 |
TA, total number of articles; TA%, the percentage in the 3085 article; LCS, local citation score; GCS, global citation score.
# | Article information | Frequence | Stream |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Holling, 1973 , Annual Rev Ecol Syst, V4, P1 | 97 | A |
2 | Folke, 2006 , GLOBAL ENVIRON CHANG, V16, P253 | 85 | A |
3 | Luthar et al., 2000 , CHILD DEV, V71, P543 | 69 | B |
4 | Gunderson & Holling, 2002 , PANARCHY UNDERSTANDI | 58 | A |
5 | Rutter, 1987 , AM J ORTHOPSYCHIAT, V57, P316 | 48 | B |
6 | Walker et al., 2004 , ECOL SOC, V9 | 46 | A |
7 | Masten, 2001 , AM PSYCHOL, V56, P227 | 44 | B |
8 | Adger, 2000 , PROG HUM GEOG, V24, P347 | 42 | A |
9 | Walker et al., 2006 , RESILIENCE THINKING | 40 | A |
10 | Berkes et al., 2003 , NAVIGATING SOCIAL EC | 38 | A |
11 | Grimm et al., 2008 , SCIENCE, V319, P756 | 37 | A |
12 | Pelling, 2003 , VULNERABILITY CITIES | 37 | A |
13 | Werner & Smith, 1992 , OVERCOMING ODDS HIGH | 37 | B |
14 | Masten et al., 1990 , DEV PSYCHOPATHOL, V2, P425 | 36 | B |
15 | Smit & Wandel, 2006 , GLOBAL ENVIRON CHANG, V16, P282 | 35 | A |
16 | Carpenter et al., 2001 , ECOSYSTEMS, V4, P765 | 34 | A |
17 | Werner & Smit, 1982 , VULNERABLE INVINCIBL | 33 | B |
18 | Folke et al., 2005 , ANNU REV ENV RESOUR, V30, P441 | 32 | A |
19 | Adger, 2006 , GLOBAL ENVIRON CHANG, V16, P268 | 31 | A |
20 | Grimm et al., 2000 , BIOSCIENCE, V50, P571 | 31 | A |
21 | Masten & Coatsworth, 1998 , AM PSYCHOL, V53, P205 | 31 | B |
22 | Pickett et al., 2004 , LANDSCAPE URBAN PLAN, V69, P369 | 31 | A |
23 | Wisner et al., 2004 , RISK NATURAL HAZARDS, V2nd | 30 | A |
Keywords are vital components of the article, and it will show the research focus to analyze the keywords frequency and keywords centricity. As
Similarly, keywords will identify research fronts to explore the burstness of keywords. Some fast growing topics will be detected by analyzing busts. As
# | Keywords | Frequence | Centrality | Year | # | Keywords | Frequence | Centrality | Year |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Resilience | 484 | 0.15 | 1993 | 13 | Health | 62 | 0.01 | 2002 |
2 | Climate-change | 155 | 0.07 | 2007 | 14 | Biodiversity | 56 | 0.42 | 2004 |
3 | Vulnerability | 128 | 0.09 | 1995 | 15 | Adolescents | 55 | 0.30 | 1993 |
4 | Management | 116 | 0.08 | 2004 | 16 | City | 53 | 0.01 | 2004 |
5 | Cities | 106 | 0.05 | 2004 | 17 | Ecosystem services | 52 | 0.13 | 2005 |
6 | Risk | 92 | 0.03 | 1996 | 18 | Governance | 47 | 0.01 | 2013 |
7 | Adaptation | 90 | 0.07 | 2010 | 19 | Youth | 46 | 0.19 | 1994 |
8 | Systems | 84 | 0.01 | 2008 | 20 | Framework | 46 | 0.01 | 2010 |
9 | Children | 80 | 0.04 | 1993 | 21 | Stress | 43 | 0.08 | 1993 |
10 | Urban | 71 | 0.01 | 2001 | 22 | United-states | 43 | 0.01 | 1993 |
11 | Sustainability | 69 | 0.04 | 2004 | 23 | Impact | 42 | 0.01 | 2005 |
12 | Social-ecological systems | 62 | 0.05 | 2010 | 24 | Urbanization | 42 | 0.01 | 2007 |