Progress and Development Trend of Drought Disaster Research Based on Bibliometric Analysis

With the intensification of climate change and the acceleration of urbanization, extreme climate events are occurring with increasing frequency. The associated drought disasters have caused significant economic losses, threatened human health, and destabilized ecosystems, making the study of drought disasters a focal point in academia. This paper employs bibliometric analysis methods such as Kleinberg's burst detection algorithm and cluster analysis to conduct a keyword co-occurrence analysis of 1,524 papers indexed in the Web of Science database from 1977 to 2021. By constructing a visualized knowledge graph, this study identifies the key research hotspots and future trends in drought studies. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Fundamental research areas of drought disasters are rooted in scientific issues such as meteorological disasters, climate change, and drought. (2) The number of publications on drought disasters has shown an overall upward trend, progressing through three stages: initial exploration, fluctuating growth, and rapid growth. (3) The scope of drought disaster research has expanded beyond traditional precipitation and meteorological studies. Recent and future research hotspots include agricultural drought, its impacts on the sustainable livelihoods and adaptive capacities of smallholder farmers, the understanding of compound events, and responses to climate change and its impacts.