Progress of bibliometric-based research on ecological security in urban agglomerations

How to ensure the ecological security of urban agglomerations in the context of rapid urbanization and industrialization has become a critical issue in the fields of ecology and urban science. This study employs CiteSpace software to visualize and analyze the current state and development trends of research on the ecological security of urban agglomerations, based on a dataset of 791 articles retrieved from the CNKI and WOS databases spanning 2000 to 2024. The results indicate that (1) The research on the ecological security of urban agglomerations can be categorized into four distinct stages: the exploratory stage (2000-2010), the budding stage (2011-2015), the developmental stage (2016-2018), and the explosive stage (2019-2024). (2) The analysis of co-occurring keywords reveals that “Urban agglomeration”, “Ecological security”, “Land use”, and “Urbanization” are central to the field. The keyword mutation indicates that the “Driving factors”, “Spatial and temporal evolution”, “Coupling and coordination”, and “Ecological resilience” have become the research frontiers on the development of ecological security in urban agglomerations after 2022. (3) The clustering keywords reveal a significant overlap between domestic and international research, which can be grouped into four major themes: “Ecological security and sustainable management”, “Urban agglomerations and urbanization development”, “Regional ecological and environmental research”, and “Modeling and methodology”.