A Bibliometric Analysis of Studies of the Land Surface Process

Based on the online version of Web of Science, we investigated the interannual variation and subject distribution of published papers on the land surface process for 1900 to 2014 by using the bibliometrics method, and focused on the research effort, corporative state and hotspot distribution during years from 2010 to 2014. The Results show that: 1) the land surface process is a interdisciplinary subject. The first paper published on land surface process appeared in 1981. The number of papers shows a trend of steady increase generally. 2) According to the number of papers, citation frequency and the number of highly cited papers, the countries with higher comprehensive influence are the America, England, French, Germany and Canada on this topic. The organizations with higher comprehensive influence include NASA, NCAR, Unit States Geological Survey, NOAA and University of Maryland. According to average citation per paper and the proportion of highly cited papers, the higher quality of papers were from the England, Switzerland, Netherlands, America, Sweden and French, as well as organizations of the NCAR, NOAA, Unit Washington, University of Maryland, NASA and University of Colorado. Although China was the second one in number of published papers, it is lack of advantage on average citation per paper or on the number and proportion of highly cited papers. 3) There was a growing trend in the cooperation degree among countries, organizations and authors. It indicates that the research scale is continuously extended, the cooperation and symbiosis are close and intimate more and more in this field generally.