An overview of ecological vulnerability: a bibliometric analysis based on the Web of Science database

Ecological vulnerability has become one of the hot issues of ecology and environmental science under global change and sustainable development scenarios. However, no study quantitatively analyzes the global scientific performance and hot research areas in this field by adopting the bibliometric method. Based on 935 pieces of literature retrieved from the Web of Science database, we comprehensively analyzed the research on ecological vulnerability in terms of growth trend, research content, publication journal and country, and co-occurrence network of keywords. The results showed that research on ecological vulnerability had experienced rapid growth since 2000, while ecological vulnerability research at the World Heritage sites was still embryonic. The top two productive countries in ecological vulnerability research were America and China, and the top two productive journals were Ecological Indicators and Regional Environmental Change. Study on ecological vulnerability was mainly classified as empirical evaluation and regional synthesis, whereas theoretical research is rare. Based on the summary of the main progress and achievements in ecological vulnerability research, we proposed five scientific issues that remain to be resolved in the field of ecological vulnerability. Overall, this study could shed light on a comprehensive and systematic understanding of ecological vulnerability and provide directions for future research on ecological vulnerability in a rapidly changing world.