Co-citation analysis of the concepts of hazard, human and environment from 1985 to 2020

Hazards are multifaceted knowledge that is rooted in humans, human activities and the natural environment and plays a major role in the development of human societies and their protection against disasters. For this reason, as an interdisciplinary knowledge, it has attracted the attention of researchers of various sciences. In this regard, this research tries to use the data available in the Web of Science database and with the help of CiteSpace software to evaluate and analyze the evolution of the concepts related to the knowledge of hazards using the co-citation method. The results of the research show that the concepts of risk, hazard, climate change and vulnerability have the most frequency, the words risk assessment, exposure to risk and management have the most reliability and the keywords climate change and crisis have the most prosperity. Also, the clustering of the researchers' intellectual developments from the analysis of the centrality index shows that they have gone through five intellectual stages. The general trend of researches on hazards and hazards management, topics related to climate changes and hazards caused by these changes, biological hazards caused by pathogenic agents, environment and environmental hazard, and finally, topics related to risk and natural disasters have been the most important steps.