Progress in adaptive governance research and hotspot analysis: a global scientometric visualization analysis

Abstract

Adaptive governance has emerged as a prominent theoretical and methodological approach in environmental governance, recognized for its capacity to address evolving conditions and future uncertainties. Despite the extensive literature on adaptive governance since its inception in 2003, a comprehensive review of the literature spanning two decades remains to be conducted. This study addresses that gap by selecting 3274 articles from the Web of Science Core Collection and performing a global scientometric visualization analysis. Our analysis identifies the most productive institutions, authors, journals, publication trends, and research frontiers in adaptive governance research. The findings reveal that there has been a significant acceleration in global research on adaptive governance over the past two decades. Furthermore, the majority of contributions to the field of adaptive governance research have been made by scholars based in the United States, Australia, England, Canada, and the Netherlands. Additionally, existing studies in adaptive governance field focus mainly on subject categories of environmental studies, environmental sciences, and ecology. Finally, the concept of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning were identified as hot topics and emerging trends. This study provides researchers and practitioners with an extensive understanding of the salient research themes, trends, and patterns in global adaptive governance research in an intuitive manner.