Bibliometric Analysis of Water Research

1
Bibliometric Analysis of Water Research Yee-Shuan
Lee1, Chung-Chi Wang2 and Yuh-Shan
Ho2 1Bibliometric Centre, Taipei Medical
University - Wan-Fang Hospital 2Taipei Medical
University - Wan-Fang Hospital
Introduction Statistics on publications and other
bibliographical items called scientometrics or
bibliometrics has become a standard basis of
classifying, mapping, assessing journals. Water
Research ranked 2 out of 50 journals in water
resources, 5 out of 38 in environmental
engineering and 31 out of 129 in environmental
sciences according to Journal Citation Reports
(JCR) with an impact factor of 1.376 in 2001. In
the present study, bibliometric techniques have
been used to help outline a profile of Water
Research during the 1981-2002 period.
Methodology The main data source of the analysis
was the Science Citation Index (SCI) database of
the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI,
Philadelphia, PA, USA). The research papers
analysis were obtained upon literature search
with defined Source Title Water
Research. Results and Discussion A total number
of 6836 papers published in volumes 15 (1981)
through 36 (2002) of Water Research by the
Science Citation Index into document types
Articles (6257 items), Book Review (45 items),
Correction (21 items), Addition Correction (19
items), Discussion (2 items), Editorial Material
(81 items), Item about an Individual (1 item),
Letter (50 items), Note (288 items) and Review
(72 items) was taken into account. Quantitative
analysis was done to assess the publication
pattern concerning in authorship, origin
countries, citation frequency and citation
indicator. Top 10 publishing countries included
the seven major industrial countries (U.S.A.,
Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Italy and Canada)
that represent a share of 64 of world
publications and 65 of world citations in Water
Research. Countries with Relative Citation Rate
(RCR) value higher than 1 indicated they had more
impact than the average of this field.

• Conclusion
• Yearly production has grown three times more by
  the end of the evaluating year and dominated by
  small group co-authorship.
• USA has dominated the production share followed
  distantly by UK and five most productive
  countries were all among the seven major
  industrial countries.
• One of the problems for Water Research is that
  there is a delay in the citing of published
  papers. It takes about ten years for the peak of
  citations to be reached, whereas the impact
  factor is calculated for only the past two years.