A Regional Perspective of Environmental Impact Assessment Research: A Bibliometric Mapping and Visualization

As the impacts of human activities on the environment have become more evident, the endeavors to address and mitigate these impacts are progressing at rapid strides. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) has emerged within this context. This assessment was desired to track EIA activities in the Arab world, a region of harsh environment. Bibliometric techniques and visualization mapping have been used to assess the status of these activities and their trends and to provide insights into the contribution of countries, institutions, authors, and journals toward the advancements of EIA research and to characterize the hot topics. A total of 536 documents (2.0% of global output) were retrieved from this region. Egypt was in the forefront and showed distinctive performance in terms of productivity (135 documents; 25.0%), impact (h-index: 25), and citations (1986). France topped the major partners with the Arab world in EIA research. Life cycle assessment, GIS, remote sensing, and biomarkers were the most used tools in this field. This assessment indicated a strong commitment toward progressing and advancing EIA research in the Arab world, which goes hand in hand with the endeavors combating climate changes.