Research trends in clean water and sanitation for sustainability a bibliometric analysis of web of science and Scopus

Clean water, sanitation, and sustainability have emerged as major interdisciplinary research themes in response to increasing concerns regarding water security, environmental degradation, public health, and sustainable resource management. This study presents a comparative bibliometric analysis of the retrieved literature on clean water, sanitation, and sustainability indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection and Scopus databases from 2015 to April 2026. A predefined thematic keyword-based search strategy was employed to identify publications addressing clean water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management, and sustainability. The search strategy was applied consistently to both databases, and only English-language research articles were included. Following the application of the selection criteria, 1482 articles from WoS and 1776 articles from Scopus were analyzed using VOSviewer to examine publication growth, citation performance, leading journals, prolific authors, institutional productivity and international collaborations, co-citation networks, and thematic evolution through keyword co-occurrence analysis. The results show an increase in publication output and citation counts after 2020, indicating increased research activity within the retrieved literature. Scopus indexed a higher number of publications and citations, while differences in collaboration patterns were observed between the two databases. The United States, India, China, and the United Kingdom emerged as the leading contributors, although differences in publication productivity and citation impact were evident between developed and emerging economies. Prominent publication outlets included Sustainability, Science of the Total Environment, Water, and the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development. Keyword co-occurrence analysis showed changing keyword distributions, with greater representation of sustainability-related themes in more recent publications, including climate change, wastewater treatment, governance, circular economy, resource efficiency, and environmental sustainability. The comparative analysis also highlights differences in database coverage and citation characteristics, emphasizing the influence of database selection on bibliometric outcomes. Overall, this study provides a comparative bibliometric assessment of the retrieved thematic literature, identifies major publication, collaboration, citation, and keyword patterns within the analyzed datasets, and highlights differences between WoS and Scopus that may inform future bibliometric research on clean water, sanitation, and sustainability.