Extended Abstract
Introduction
Climate change is one of the most important global challenges of the current century, and its effects on various economic, social, and environmental sectors, especially in the agricultural sector, have become increasingly apparent. Rising air temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, frequent droughts, increased frequency of extreme events, and reduced available water resources have posed serious risks to agricultural production and affected the food security of many countries. In such circumstances, research related to climate change and agriculture has grown significantly in recent decades. Despite the increase in the number of these studies, it is still necessary to understand scientific trends, topics of interest, leading researchers and institutions, scientific collaborations, and research gaps. Bibliometric studies using scientific analysis methods provide the opportunity to evaluate the structure of knowledge, the growth trend of scientific production, collaboration networks, and research topics. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of studies related to climate change and agriculture in order to examine the process of publishing scientific documents, identify authors, active universities and countries, examine scientific collaborations and analyze the conceptual structure of the research based on the keywords used.
Materials & Methods
This study is a bibliometric study. Research data was extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Document searches were conducted using keywords related to climate change and agriculture, and articles published between 1988 and 2025 were reviewed. In total, 1367 articles were selected for analysis. Bibliographic information including authors, year of publication, institutional affiliation, country, keywords, sources and citations were extracted and, after preparation, analyzed in the R software environment using the Bibliometrix package and the Biblioshiny graphical interface. In this study, in addition to descriptive bibliometric indicators, network analysis methods were used to examine patterns of collaboration between researchers, institutions, and countries, as well as conceptual structure analysis based on keyword co-occurrence to provide a comprehensive picture of the development of knowledge and research topics in this field.
In this study, indicators such as the time trend of publication of articles, the number of citations, active authors and institutions, leading countries, scientific collaboration network, and keyword co-occurrence analysis were evaluated. The results were presented and interpreted in the form of graphs and scientific networks.
Results & Discussion
The results showed that the trend of publication of research related to climate change and agriculture has grown significantly in recent years, which indicates the increasing attention of the scientific community to the consequences of climate change on the agricultural sector. A survey of scientific institutions showed that the Institute of Geography, Sciences and Natural Resources and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, each with 647 articles, had the largest share in scientific production in this field. Among Iranian universities, the University of Tehran with 233 articles, Shiraz University with 77 articles, Tabriz University with 74 articles, and Shahid Beheshti University with 49 articles are considered to be the most active scientific centers in the country. Also, Iran is ranked sixteenth in the world with 1,732 scientific productions. A review of active countries showed that the United States and China have the largest share in the production of scientific documents in this field. A keyword co-occurrence analysis also showed that words such as “climate change”, “agriculture”, “adaptation”, “resilience”, “greenhouse gas emissions”, “management” and “food security” are among the most important research axes in this field. These results indicate that in addition to examining the effects of climate change, recent research has also paid special attention to developing adaptation strategies, increasing the resilience of agricultural systems, managing water resources and reducing the effects of climate change on agricultural production.
Conclusion
The results of this study showed that research related to climate change and agriculture has been growing in recent decades, and developed and some developing countries have played an important role in producing knowledge in this field. Also, the analysis of scientific networks and keywords showed that topics such as climate change adaptation, resilience, food security, water resources management, and greenhouse gas emission reduction are among the most important current research areas. The findings of this study can identify scientific trends and research gaps, as well as provide a suitable basis for guiding future studies, developing international scientific collaborations, and supporting research policies in the field of climate change and agriculture.