Research Trends in Non Point Source during 1975-2010

According to the samples of 2924 articles about non point source of SCI and SSCI databases from 1975 to 2010, this study analysed the articles in the growth trend of article outputs, subject categories and journals, international collaborations, geographic distribution and scientific research issues by using bibliometric analysis. The results showed that non point source research steadily increased over the past 35 years and the annual number of articles published in 2010 was 79 times of that in 1975. Non point source was involved into 67 kinds of subjects and appeared in 451 journals. The main study area was concentrated in North America and Europe, following by East Asia. There were 79 countries/territories participated in non point source research, and USA was the largest contributor in non point source research and had a central position in collaboration networks. A keyword analysis indicated that water quality, non point pollutions, and watershed were the hottest issues of non point source research; “GIS, “watershed management”, “modeling”, “simulation”, “monitoring”, and “remote sensing” were the most popular research methods; and “agriculture”, “land use”, “runoff”, and “pollution” were the leading causes of non point pollution.