Thematic analysis of environmental justice of research progress and future direction over the past decades

Environmental justice is closely related concepts that address the unequal environmental related burdens disproportionately affecting vulnerable and marginalized communities. The ultimate sample of 151 articles retrieved from the Scopus database was precisely filtered and screened following the PRISM framework, using rigorous inclusion and exclusion criteria to generate the final data analysis. Data were analyzed using VOSviewer 1.6.20 and R-Studio 5.0. The annual growth rate of publication was 24.55% with an average of 29.56% citations across review articles from 2007 to 2025 years. The United States emerged as the leading contributor with a total of 43 articles (28.48%), while the United Kingdom followed with contributions of 11 (7.28%) and Australia, Canada and Germany 8 articles for each country with (5.30%), respectively. Based on the Bradford distribution model, Zone 1 (core zone) is the most productive or core zone because a relatively small share of sources generates a relatively large share of articles. The empirical distribution deviates significantly from Bradford’s law ( p = 0.0209). A p-value < 0.05 indicates a significant deviation. The field is rapidly evolving, with increasing emphasis on environmental justice and climate change, but it needs clearer, standardized concepts to support research, activism, and policymaking. The visualization highlights the shift in academic priorities and recommends standardizing how social justice and biodiversity are conceptualized so that efforts across research, advocacy, and policy can align more effectively.