Sustainable Water Use in Agriculture: A Review of Worldwide Research
1
Department of Economics and Business, Research Centre CIAIMBITAL and CAESCG, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain
2
Solar Energy Research Centre (CIESOL), Joint Centre University of Almería-CIEMAT, 04120 Almería, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2018, 10(4), 1084; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041084
Received: 25 February 2018 / Revised: 22 March 2018 / Accepted: 3 April 2018 / Published: 5 April 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Irrigation for the Future: Addressing the Challenges to Improved Water Use Efficiency)
Sustainability of water use in agriculture is a line of research that has gained in importance worldwide. The present study reviewed 25 years of international research on sustainable water use in agriculture. A bibliometric analysis was developed to sample 2084 articles. Results indicate exponential growth in the number of articles published per year, with research in this field having acquired a global scale. Environmental Science and Agricultural and Biological Sciences are the main categories. Three journals—Agricultural Water Management, Water Resources Management and Nongye Gongcheng Xuebao Agricultural Engineering—published the most of the articles. China, the U.S., Australia, India and Germany produced the most research. The three institutions that published the most articles were all Chinese (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Agricultural University and Northwest A&F University). The most cited authors were Ridoutt, Hoekstra and Zhang. The keywords most frequently used include: water-use, irrigation, water-management, water-supply, and sustainability. A network map shows three clusters that focus on the environmental, agronomic and management aspects. The findings of this study can assist researchers in this field by providing an overview of research on the sustainability of hydric resources.
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Keywords:
sustainability; water use; agriculture; bibliometric analysis; Scopus
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MDPI and ACS Style
Velasco-Muñoz, J.F.; Aznar-Sánchez, J.A.; Belmonte-Ureña, L.J.; Román-Sánchez, I.M. Sustainable Water Use in Agriculture: A Review of Worldwide Research. Sustainability 2018, 10, 1084. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041084
AMA Style
Velasco-Muñoz JF, Aznar-Sánchez JA, Belmonte-Ureña LJ, Román-Sánchez IM. Sustainable Water Use in Agriculture: A Review of Worldwide Research. Sustainability. 2018; 10(4):1084. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041084
Chicago/Turabian StyleVelasco-Muñoz, Juan F., José A. Aznar-Sánchez, Luis J. Belmonte-Ureña, and Isabel M. Román-Sánchez 2018. "Sustainable Water Use in Agriculture: A Review of Worldwide Research" Sustainability 10, no. 4: 1084. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041084
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