Analysis of intellectual and thematic progress of the Journal of Environmental Management - Section V: Environmental...

This study examines the intellectual and thematic progress of Section V of the Journal of Environmental Management, covering 773 publications from the Web of Science Core Collection over the period February 2024 to mid-March 2025. Using bibliometrix package and biblioshiny web interface, we conduct author, affiliation, country, document, word, network, thematic, factorial, and social network analyses to scrutinize research trends and collaboration patterns. The results show strong author collaboration and high citation impact among key contributors. Prominent affiliations such as Ministry of Education of Azerbaijan Republic, Beijing Institute of Technology, Azerbaijan State University of Economics (UNEC), and Chinese Academy of Sciences are the top contributors to impactful publications. China emerges as the top contributor country with 437 papers and 316 single-country publications, far ahead of the United Kingdom and the United States. This study also identifies the most frequent and emerging keywords from the titles, abstracts, and authors' specified keywords, which include sustainable development, carbon emissions, green innovation, total factor productivity, renewable energy, climate policy uncertainty, and environmental sustainability. It shows important declining or emerging themes, such as ESG practices, environmental justice, ecosystem services, water quality, quality trading, environmental management, green investment, environmental consequences, and low carbon innovation, along with niche, motor, and basic themes. This study offers several recommendations and implications.