Co-citation and co-occurrence analysis of scientific productions in water pollution field

Co-citation and word co-occurrence analysis can help to identify key articles in any subject area. Therefore, the purpose of the current paper is to identify the thematic orientation in the co-citation and co-occurrence network of prominent articles in water pollution field in the world.

The current research is applied in terms of purpose, and descriptive in terms of type, which was carried out using co-citation and word co-occurrence analysis. In order to better understand the research conducted in water pollution and draw a scientific map of this field, all the published articles (28095 docs) were retrieved in the Web of Science database from 2011 to 2022 in August 20, 2023. Citespace software was used to analyze and draw co-citation maps and VOSviewer was used to analyze and draw word co-occurrence maps in water pollution articles.

Generally, there exists 245 co-citation link between 101 documents in the co-citation network of articles. The top articles in water pollution field in the above-mentioned time period formed 12 thematic clusters. The results of co-referencing documents in water pollution state the formation of the most important cluster (cluster 0) in 2014 in drinking water, removing arsenic, groundwater pollution. The largest number of clusters (5 clusters out of the total number of 12 clusters) was formed in the period of 2017-2019. The word co-occurrence results stated that cluster number 1 with 65 members and the topic of different methods of wastewater treatment is the most important one discussed in the articles. The terms "water pollution", "adsorption", "water quality" have the highest frequency of co-occurrence compared to other terms with 2177, 2136, 945 respectively.

Different clusters were formed in this research, most of which focus on removing pollution in water in different ways using the latest methods. These results can be an effective step in saving the time and money of officials in forming necessary policies.