LAND DEGRADATION NEUTRALITY: THE BIBLIOMETRIC LANDSCAPE

The article highlights the results of theoretical analysis of trends, current status and bibliometric landscape of publication activity in the field of land degradation neutrality in the world based on the Scopus database. It has been established that if the current average annual growth rate of publication activity is maintained, the projected annual productivity in this area of research in the world in 2025 will be at the level of 83 documents, including 28 papers directly related to land degradation neutrality. Research on the analysed topic is concentrated mainly in developed countries (China, India, Germany, Australia, Italy). The clustering of inter-country cooperation allowed to identify four clusters: 1) Ethiopia, France, Kenya, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom; 2) India, Israel, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey; 3) Australia, China, Germany, Iran, Spain; 4) Argentina, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States. To date, Ukraine is outside these clusters, which indicates the need to intensify international cooperation in the field of land degradation neutrality research. We consider the European institutions that are among the top 10 organisations in the world in terms of publication activity and/or funding of research on land degradation neutrality to be the priority for establishing cooperation. Four clusters of keywords have been identified and characterised, reflecting the main areas of research in the world: 1) soil organic carbon sequestration in the context of climate change and environmental protection; 2) land productivity and land degradation neutrality, desertification in the context of sustainable development; 3) land degradation, land use, land cover and land management (including sustainable land management); 4) ecosystem services, environmental and economic aspects of ecosystem restoration. The identified main areas of research in each of the four clusters, based on the most commonly used terms, may be useful for Ukrainian scientists to develop these areas as priorities. The first two clusters are important in terms of assessing land degradation as a result of war, and the last two clusters are important in terms of post-war restoration.