Scholarly Networks on Resilience, Vulnerability and Adaptation within the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a bibliometric analysis of the knowledge domains resilience, vulnerability and adaptation within the research activities on human dimensions of global environmental change. We analyzed how 2,286 publications over the last 30 years are related in terms of co-authorship relations, and citation relations. The number of publications in the three knowledge domains increased rapidly during the last decade. However, the resilience knowledge domain is only weakly connected with the other two domains in terms of co-authorships and citations. The resilience knowledge domain has a background in ecology and mathematics with a focus on theoretical models, while the vulnerability and adaptation knowledge domains have a background in geography, natural hazards research with a focus on case studies and climate change research. There is an increasing number of cross citations and papers classified in multiple knowledge domains. This seems to indicate on a merge of the different knowledge domains.