Sustainable water planning and management research in Saudi Arabia: a data-driven bibliometric analysis

The present study aims to portray the Saudi scientific literature on “Water Planning and Management (WPM)” based on the bibliometric method. The Web of Science of Clarivate Analytics is used as a data source. MS Excel, VOS viewer, Biblioshiny, and BibExcel software packages are employed for data analysis and bibliometric indicator characterization. The study addresses evaluating the overall performance of WPM scientists and investigators affiliated with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The set research questions are investigated within the scope of productive countries, organizations, prolific authors, highly cited researcher, preferred source, collaboration pattern, frequently used keywords, co-occurrence citation network, publication source, etc. The study used a total of 685 document types from diverse tracks. The most preferred document type observed to be an article. The year 2020 recorded maximum research productivity; however, 2016 is the peak year for citation count. King Saud University (KSU), King Abdulaziz University (KAU), and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) are the leading institutions in research productivity and the highest h-index. Also, KSA, the United States of America (USA), Egypt, and Pakistan are the leaders in publications, citation, and collaboration networks. The most prolific authors in terms of publications count are observed as Sen Z., Ali I., and Elhag M. “The Arabian Journal of Geosciences,” “Desalination and Water Treatment,” and “Water” are the top three choices for publications among the Saudi researchers.