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Article

Advances in Forest Management Research in the Context of Carbon Neutrality: A Bibliometric Analysis

by
Yanqin Zhang
1,
Xinhui Fei
1,
Fan Liu
1,
Jiaxin Chen
1,
Xianli You
1,
Shanjun Huang
1,
Minhua Wang
1,2 and
Jianwen Dong
1,2,*
1
College of Landscape Architecture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, 15 Shangxiadian Rd, Fuzhou 350002, China
2
Engineering Research Center for Forest Park of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Fuzhou 350002, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Forests 2022, 13(11), 1810; https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111810
Submission received: 19 September 2022 / Revised: 14 October 2022 / Accepted: 28 October 2022 / Published: 30 October 2022
(This article belongs to the Section Forest Ecology and Management)
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Abstract

:
Climate change has become a threat to humanity, and achieving carbon neutrality is a worldwide objective. Forests are significant natural carbon sinks; forest ecosystems are one of the effective ways to mitigate climate change, and professional management may effectively contribute to achieving carbon neutrality goals. Using the bibliometrix R-package in R and CiteSpace for bibliometric analysis of research areas from general statistics and knowledge base perspectives, this study systematically reviewed the status, evolution, and research hotspots of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality based on 6112 papers published in this research area between 2002 and 2022. The results revealed: (1) The research on forest management in the context of carbon neutrality has rapidly developed with a high level of attention between 2002–2022. Furthermore, this field of research has become a well-established discipline. (2) Throughout the research history, there were five main research hotspots, which were the function of forest carbon sinks, scientific and rational forest management, forest ecosystem services, assessment of forest carbon sinks, and forest management models. (3) Potential future research avenues include the development of a new model of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality.

1. Introduction

Since the 21st century, with the frequent occurrence of many extreme climate phenomena, such as melting glaciers and spreading wildfires, as well as the increase in global carbon dioxide emissions, which pose a threat to life systems, mitigating climate warming has become a challenge that the world needs to overcome together. To mitigate climate change as soon as possible, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in 1992, opening a new chapter in global climate governance. This was followed by the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set a long-term temperature goal of keeping the global average temperature rise well below 2 °C and working to limit it to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels [1]. Currently, a growing number of countries are proposing carbon-neutral strategies as their long-term emission reduction targets for the mid-21st century during the implementation of the Paris Agreement [2]. Carbon neutrality objectives are essential, with more than 130 nations and territories already committing to them and 119 countries submitting new or modified nationally determined contributions (NDCs) [3].
Enhancing carbon sinks in terrestrial ecosystems is an important way to mitigate the continuous increase of atmospheric CO2 concentration and achieve the goal of carbon neutrality [4]. As the largest carbon pool in terrestrial ecosystems, forests play an irreplaceable and important role in adapting to and mitigating global climate change [5]. The world’s forests cover a total area of 4.06 billion hectares, or 31% of the total land area. The Russian Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States, and China account for more than half (54%) of the world’s forests. In recent years, the world’s forest area has continued to decline, but the rate of decline has slowed. Among them, Africa is the region with the highest net loss of forest area, and Asia has the highest net increase in forest area. In addition, the world’s forest standing stock is declining, and total forest carbon stocks are decreasing, but more than 2 billion hectares of forests have management plans in place [6]. Studies have shown that the amount of carbon sequestered by the world’s forests is equivalent to about 34% of the emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production, with the increase in carbon sequestration by tree biomass playing a leading role [7]. Forest carbon sinks are powerful, but the carbon absorption capacity of forests varies with climate factors, site conditions, and forest types, among other factors. Therefore, there is instability in the carbon sequestration capacity of forests. Moreover, forests are vulnerable to human and natural disturbances, and there are still outstanding problems, such as low quality [8]. In addition, the existing forest carbon sink emission reduction strategy is relatively unilateral, the benefits are relatively minimal, and the impact on local society and the economy is significant.
At the same time, forest management is a way to effectively manage forest ecosystems that can be tailored to different forest types, not only to improve ecosystem resilience and water production, protect soil erosion and biodiversity, and improve tree growth and vigor but also to provide a landscape aesthetic and sightseeing experience [9]. For example, new forest plantations, as a common approach to forest management, are a central strategy for mitigating climate change and can provide multiple ecosystem services, such as active carbon dynamics and enrichment of carbon stocks, as well as non-timber forest resources such as food, medicine, and fiber as sustainable livelihoods [10]. Effective and scientific forest management may increase the forest carbon sinks and could effectively promote the goal of carbon neutrality. Moreover, many scholars around the world are exploring practical ways to influence forest ecosystems through forest management as a pathway to achieve climate change mitigation. As research on forest management in the context of carbon neutrality emerges, it is necessary to conduct a systematic bibliometric analysis of this research area. Bibliometrics is an interdisciplinary science, and it is a new body of knowledge that integrates mathematics, statistics, and linguistics. Bibliometric analysis is used to quantify research and its development in various fields and to identify relevant trends. This method is commonly used to study the development process of academic research fields, explore current research hotspots, and predict future research directions [11]. Recently, bibliometric analysis has received increasing attention from the academic community.
Using comprehensive bibliometric analysis, this study explored the research patterns and development history of forest management from the perspective of carbon neutrality. This study conducted an analysis of the main information, the number of articles issued, country or region of issue, core authors, journal distribution, academic development, theme word evolution, and Sankey diagrams. Therefore, a comprehensive and macroscopic understanding of the knowledge in the field was obtained through a multifaceted bibliometric analysis. Then, a knowledge base analysis including keywords analysis (research hotspots, research history, and research frontiers) and co-citation analysis of the literature (milestone literature and clustering analysis of literature co-citations) was conducted that provided a novel and unique perspective that, combined with visual mapping drawn by bibliometric software, provided a systematic and detailed description of the knowledge context of the research area. This will help scholars who wish to work on ways to achieve carbon neutrality goals with forest management to better understand the overview and cutting-edge progress in the field. The studies were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database, analyzed using the bibliometrix R-package in R and CiteSpace visualization software to establish a visual knowledge network, and focused on the following eight key points:
  • Key information and volume of publications in the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality.
  • Countries, authors, journals, and disciplines involved in the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality.
  • Thematic changes in the research history of the field of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality.
  • Interconnection of authors, keywords, and countries in the field of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality.
  • Research hotspots, research history, and research frontiers in the field of forest management in the context of carbon neutrality.
  • The milestones and main types of literature in the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality.
  • The role and significance of forest management for carbon neutrality goals.
  • Prospects of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Data Collection

A total of 6112 articles were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database on 18 August 2022. This WoS core collection database was selected to collect the research literature for this study. The search formula was (TS = (forest management) AND TS = ((Carbon Neutral) OR (Carbon Neutrality) OR (dual carbon) OR (Carbon sequestration) OR (carbon stores) OR (carbon fluxes) OR (carbon sinks) OR (Carbon Balance))) AND (DT == (“ARTICLE” OR “REVIEW”) AND LA == (“ENGLISH”)).

2.2. Data Analysis

Bibliometrics is a set of quantitative tools for analyzing bibliographic data. These tools can fully analyze information related to published literature in the research field, including publication (year, country or region, author, etc.), keyword and citation trend analysis, etc., and help scholars to fully grasp the knowledge structure of the research field [12]. Software for visualization and analysis that is often used includes CiteSpace, VOSviewer, Histcite [13], Bibexcel [14], and the R-package bibliometrix [15]. Because of their complete bibliometric analysis capabilities, as well as their visualization capabilities, open access, and mutual complementarity, CiteSpace 5.7.R5 and the “biblioshiny” feature of the bibliometrix R-package in R were selected to do the bibliometric analysis for this study. Figure 1a shows the main operating interfaces of the two bibliometric analysis tools selected for this paper (CiteSpace 5.7.R5’s operating interface is at the top of Figure 1a and the “biblioshiny” feature of the bibliometrix R-package in R’s authoring interface is at the bottom of Figure 1a). First, CiteSpace information visualization and analysis software is a new approach to bibliometric analysis that revolutionizes traditional review methods and is one of the most popular knowledge mapping tools [16]. It is designed to support visual analysis and to capture the exact bibliometric structure (e.g., authors, countries, keywords, etc.) of a particular aspect of a given research area. Second, the “biblioshiny” function of the bibliometrix R-package in R was chosen to perform the bibliometric analysis [17] because the bibliometrix R-package in R is an open-source tool that allows for a comprehensive and integrated scientific mapping analysis of the scientific literature and is more flexible in its use. CiteSpace and the bibliometrix R-package in R complement each other, making the bibliometric analysis of this research area more comprehensive, integrated, and detailed with the use of both software.
The flowchart shown in Figure 1b shows the analysis method and analysis process of this study. The bibliometrix R-package in R included the main information, number of articles issued, country or region of issue, journal distribution, theme word evolution, and Sankey diagrams. In addition, this research used CiteSpace to analyze the data in depth in order to grasp the knowledge structure and development history of the research field in more detail, including the visualization of core authors and disciplinary development trends, and to mine the research hotspots, research history, and research frontiers of the research field through keyword analysis, and to identify the milestone literature and the main types of literature in the research field through literature co-citation analysis, which also helped to mine and analyze the relationship between the literature and cited literature in the research field.
In summary, the bibliometric analysis in this study was conducted using two bibliometric tools and was divided into two main sections to identify trends in research on forest management in a carbon-neutral context.

3. General Statistics

3.1. Main Information

A macro-level grasp of the research area, the volume of literature, the source journals, the authors of the literature, the keywords of the literature, and details of the key information in the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality for the period 2002–2022 are given in Table 1. The collected literature data were first screened for the literature in the bibliometrix R-package in R. Reviews and articles covered the main research information of the research area, so we chose reviews and articles to filter papers and eliminate reviews, book chapters, data papers, articles, early access, etc. After removing less representative record types, such as proceedings papers and notes, the dataset was reduced from 6112 to 6060 research articles and reviews. Table 1 shows the 6060 articles exported from WoS that were published in 668 sources by 18,654 authors. The annual growth rate of the documents was 8.95%, the average age of publication of the documents was 6.62, and the mean number of citations per document was 33.17, with a reference total of 209,651 for the 6060 documents. Meanwhile, the number of authors of single-authored documents was 195, and the number of single-authored documents was 237. The co-authors per document were 5.11, and the international co-authorships were 39.83%.

3.2. Number of Articles Issued

Based on the evolution of the number of articles in the current study, a filter was applied to analyze the postings and citations of a total of 6060 published reviews and articles from 2002 to 2022 using the bibliometrix R-package in R to obtain Figure 2. As shown in Figure 2, research on forest management in the context of carbon neutrality has significantly evolved over the last two decades, with an upward trend in the number of papers published and included in the WoS database each year, with over 73% of publications between 2013 and 2022. However, this trend was unstable, as evidenced by several small decreases in the number of papers annually published. In addition, Figure 2 shows the average annual article citation rate, which peaked in 2010 at 6.42, indicating that it took one or more articles published in 2010 to make the highest average total number of citations per year in this research area. The average annual citation rate reached its low point in 2006 (3.21). The trend of the average annual citation rate, on the other hand, was more volatile, and the development of the average annual citation rate in the later decade was steadier than in the first. It was followed by a falling tendency from 2011 to 2013 and a slightly increasing trend from 2014 to 2019.

3.3. Country Region of Issue

Many countries and regions focused on this research area, and this analysis used the bibliometrix R-package in R to analyze the corresponding author’s country and Most cited countries Table 2 lists the 20 countries and regions with higher total research papers published and higher total citations in previous studies. The total number of papers published in the U.S. and China far exceeds that of other countries, with 1355 papers published in the U.S., accounting for 22.4% of the total, and 1024 papers published in China, accounting for 16.9% of the total. This was followed closely by Canada (324), Germany (288), Australia (268), and Finland (221). In developed countries, there was a greater interest in this research field, while there was comparatively less interest in developing nations. For the number of citations of published literature, the United States (64,745) accounted for 32.3% of all citations in this field of study, followed by China (18,129), Germany (12,605), and the United Kingdom (11,904) and Canada (10,923). However, the top five countries in terms of average article citations were Ireland (162.85), the Netherlands (59.51), Austria (56.44), the United Kingdom (56.15), and the United States (47.78), which showed that countries with fewer publications, such as Ireland and the Netherlands, were not necessarily weak, and their total citation frequency was significantly higher than that of countries or regions with more publications.
Publications involving authors from different countries (multiple country publications (MCP)) were not common, but it was common to find single-country publications (SCP). From Table 2, the United States (1022) maintained a high number of co-authored papers by authors of the same nationality, and the highest number of co-authored papers with authors from other countries were from China (405), the United States (333), Germany (158), the United Kingdom (110), and Canada (104). However, the multiple country publications ratio (MCP ratio) was very different from countries or regions with a high number of co-authored papers; the highest MCP ratio was in the Netherlands (0.709), followed by Austria (0.636), Switzerland (0.564), France (0.563), and Germany (0.549), so there were countries or regions that published fewer papers but maintained a high level of international cooperation.
We observed the collaboration and network of researchers from different countries with each other in this research area. After filtering by the bibliometrix R-package in R, the default system parameters of the bibliometrix R-package were applied to the country collaboration map (shown in Figure 3). The color gradient in Figure 3 indicates the number of published articles: the darker the color, the higher the number of published articles. The red lines represent the degree of cooperation between countries or regions: each red line represents a cooperation line, and more red lines represent more cooperation. As from Figure 3, the research on forest management in the context of carbon neutrality around the world has a certain research base and is largely covered by blue blocks, except for the African and Asian regions in the figure with more gray areas, followed by Europe, which means that these countries are not currently conducting research on forest management committed to carbon neutrality, nor are they cooperating with other countries on WoS. In this research area, the global connection was stronger and had more cooperation, as shown in Figure 3, to build a richer cooperation network. The red lines interweave a more complex region, which is Europe, followed by North America and Asia, which proves that these three countries or regions regularly publish in this research field and have closer ties with other countries. Table 3 shows the top 20 most frequent collaborations between countries or regions. The most prominent collaborations are between the U.S. and other countries, and the top five inter-country collaborations are all initiated by the United States, such as with China (259), Canada (137), the United Kingdom (125), Brazil (124), and Germany (112), followed by China, Germany, and the United Kingdom, who also actively initiate inter-country or -regional collaborative research.
In summary, there is an increasing amount of study being conducted on forest management and carbon neutrality, and researchers from across the globe are collaborating more on this topic.

3.4. Core Authors

It is useful to know how scholars interact in the field of study to understand the research dynamics of the field of study. This is because co-authorship in a piece of literature is an important form of academic collaboration [18]. Figure 4 shows the author collaboration network map obtained using CiteSpace. The parameter settings were all the software default parameters. From Figure 4, the total number of network nodes is 892 (N = 892). The nodes are connected by 1102 links (E = 1102), and the density of the network in the study area is 0.0028 (density = 0.0028). The interweaving of lines in the figure indicates the existence of a relatively close collaborative network among the authors. Table 4 shows the top 10 authors by number of published articles. Guomo Zhou (counts = 29) is the author with the highest number of publications, followed by R. Lal (counts = 21), Manfred J. Lexer (counts = 18), Scott X. Chang (counts = 17), and Timo Pukkala (counts = 15). Moreover, Manfred J. Lexer et al. pointed out that research on forest responses to climate change requires an interdisciplinary research process that is integrated with monitoring networks and predictive models [19]. In addition, the centrality reflects the influence of that author. Philippe Ciais, Hubert Hasenauer, and Anders Lindroth are the three most influential authors, all of whom have a centrality of 0.02. Among them, Philippe Ciais et al. reviewed the impact of climate extremes on the terrestrial carbon cycle, showing that climate extremes make the structure of terrestrial ecosystems and carbon cycles need to be better optimized and studied [20]. Furthermore, Hubert Hasenauer et al.’s use of satellite and ground data to estimate forest productivity at a national scale found that forest management changed carbon allocation patterns, with forest management reducing volume increment per unit area, but this resulted in higher rates of tree diameter and height increment [21]. Finally, Anders Lindroth found that the net forest carbon sequestration was dominated by nitrogen deposition and that humans ultimately control the carbon balance of temperate and boreal forests, either directly (through forest management) or indirectly (through nitrogen deposition) [22].

3.5. Journal Distribution

Visual analysis of journals can show the changes in the literature in this research area and facilitate researchers in reading and publishing the literature [23]. After the bibliometrix R-package in R screening analysis, between 2002 and 2022, there were 668 journals devoted to forest management research in the area of carbon neutrality. Figure 5 lists the top 20 journals with the highest number of publications in the research field from 2002–2022. Figure 5 shows that Forest Ecology and Management (559 publications, 9.22% of all articles) was the most published, followed by Forests (249, 4.11%) and Science of the Total Environment (161, 2.66%), closely followed by Global Change Biology (141, 2.33%). The remaining journals had fewer publications, indicating that the Journal of Forest Ecology and Management is the most predominant journal in this research field.
The h-index, known as the h-factor, is a measure of intellectual achievement. The h-index indicates the academic achievement of a scholar, journal, or country, and the higher the h-index, the greater the influence of the individual’s, journal’s, or country’s papers. Therefore, Table 5 reflects the 20 journals with the highest h-index in this field of study. Combining Figure 5 with Table 5, this research shows that Forest Ecology and Management maintained a high number of publications (559) and had a very high impact (74). Next, Global Change Biology ranked fourth in terms of the number of articles (141) and second in terms of impact (62). The rest of the journals were more even in terms of impact.

3.6. Academic Development

A dual-map overlay is an analysis method that shows the domain-level concentration of references by reference path [24]. Figure 6 shows the biplot overlay for this study area. Figure 6 was created using CiteSpace software with a source circle size = 0 and target circle size = 0. Source circle size refers to the number of citations, and target circle size refers to the number of cited literature. Then, the citation lines were merged by the z-score function to obtain Figure 6. Figure 6 depicts the interconnections between published journals in this research area, which were divided into regions representing publications and citation activity in a particular research area. The clusters on the left side indicate the location of the retrieved literature publication, while the clusters on the right side indicate the location of the cited literature, while the region names are marked with terms commonly used in the underlying journals. Citation tracks are distinguished by the color of the citation region, and the thickness of these tracks is proportional to the frequency of z-score-scaled citations [25]. This figure provides a representation of the pattern of how published literature in this research area references other fundamentals (i.e., cited references). Figure 6 shows that there are three major citation paths in this research area, and Table 6 summarizes these paths and trends with the names of the citing and cited regions. These relationships are listed in descending order of z-score, where they are rounded to the nearest thousand. Table 6 shows that the most frequently recorded areas covered in this study area were: (1) “ecology, earth, marine” and (2) “veterinary, animal, science”. This literature was mostly influenced by “plant, ecology, zoology” and “earth, geology, geophysics”. On top of these domains, “molecular, biology, immunology” (depicted in yellow lines) and “economics, economic, and political” (illustrated in blue lines) contributed to the domain-level citation trends in opinion mining. Figure 6 and Table 6 show that the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality is multidisciplinary, as the literature from multiple disciplinary areas with cited literature contributed to the citation profile of the field. For example, “plant, ecology, zoology” were the research context for “ecology, earth, marine” (see the first rows of Table 6). In summary, based on these facts, this research concluded that the research field is interdisciplinary in nature. “Molecular, biology, immunology molecular, biology, immunology” (depicted in yellow lines), and “economics, economic, political economics, economic, and political disciplines” also reflected the interdisciplinary developmental research character of the research area.

3.7. Theme Word Evolution

3.7.1. Thematic Evolution Analysis

The subject terms can reflect the research center of the research field, and the change in the trend of the subject terms can reflect the research focus and changes in the research field. After the bibliometrix R-package in R filtering, a thematic evolution diagram was obtained (Figure 7), which showed that “management” and “sequestration” played a fundamental role in the development of knowledge and the meaning of “forest”, “dynamics”, “climate-change”, and “biomass”. On the other hand, “nitrogen”, “storage”, “carbon”, and “carbon sequestration” formed another outstanding body of concepts in this knowledge area, and most of these keywords revolved around the research on forest management, biomass, climate, and carbon cycle processes, and the attention to these keywords has continued to increase from 2002–2022.

3.7.2. Thematic Map Analysis

Thematic analysis uses the authors’ keywords and their interconnections to cluster the themes. These themes are distributed in the thematic map according to their density and centrality, and these two attributes reflect whether the themes are well-developed and important. Figure 8 shows the thematic map of the forest management research area based on the carbon neutral context, filtered by the bibliometrix R-package in R with default parameters. Density is shown on the vertical axis, while centrality is shown on the horizontal axis. Centrality is the degree of association between different topics; density measures the cohesion between nodes [26]. In a thematic network, the higher the number of relationships a node has with other nodes, the higher its centrality and importance, and the more it is in a fundamental position in the network. Similarly, the density between nodes represents their ability to develop and maintain themselves.
In Figure 8, there are basically four quadrants (Q1 to Q4). The first quadrant (top right) of motor themes (Q1) represents themes that are both important and well-developed. The second quadrant (top left) of highly developed and isolated themes (Q2) represents themes that are currently well-developed but not important for the current field. The third quadrant (bottom left) of emerging or declining themes (Q3) represents marginal themes that are not well developed, may have just emerged, or may be about to disappear. The basic and transversal themes (Q4) in the lower right corner of the fourth quadrant represent themes that are important to the field but are not well-developed at the moment and generally refer to basic concepts.
It is worth noting from the figure that, sandwiched between the first and second quarters, a density of 0 for this theme meant that the theme was less cohesive, and the highest centrality meant that the field was more relevant to this theme. Climate change, carbon sequestration, and growth seemed to be themes that occupied a certain research position and were well developed throughout the second quadrant, indicating that some of this content was not very important for this research area. The thematic analysis showed the need to distinguish which research areas within the themes were important and then focused on further development. Second, the themes in the second quadrant formed intrinsic links but did not contribute much to the development of this research area. This finding suggests that the themes of the second quadrant, such as carbon-dioxide, exchange, and dioxide, are marginal themes for this research area. Immediately after, the themes of management, sequestration, and forest in the fourth quadrant suggest that some of their components are fundamental and necessary for this research area.

3.7.3. Theme Evolution Chart Analysis

This section visualizes the topic evolution analysis using Sankey diagrams, which helped us to clarify the number and direction of topic flows and the transformation relationships between topics [27]. Figure 9 was obtained by using the bibliometrix R-package in R and selecting Number of Cutting Points = 4. The figure is divided into five main time periods, 2002–2011, 2012–2015, 2016–2018, 2019–2020, and 2021–2022. The nodes in the figure indicate the main research topics generated by the common word network analysis in each time slice. The text labels next to the nodes indicate the core keywords of the topics as well as the time slices. The number of keywords contained in each topic is indicated by the size of the corresponding node rectangle. Topics from neighboring time slices are connected by streamlines when they share the same keywords. The width of the streamlines is proportional to the number of keywords shared by the connected topics and indicates the correlation between them. The figure illustrates the research’s ongoing tendency to diversify subject topics as it progresses.
Figure 9 shows that in the early phase (2002–2011), fundamental research focused on various research areas, such as “biomass”, “management”, “ nitrogen”, and “CO2”. In the second phase (2012–2015), climate change research was established, while many diverse studies such as fluxes, conservation, and matter emerged under the theme of “management”. In the third phase (2016–2018), management and climate change studies were further developed, and many interdisciplinary studies, such as carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and respiration, emerged. In the fourth phase (2019–2020), forests, climate change, and management studies continued to advance, timber was derived from biodiversity and carbon sequestration studies, and Norway spruce was transformed from carbon sequestration to climate change studies. In the fifth phase (2021–2022), the comprehensiveness of the research area was further increased as the various research areas of the previous time slices with different themes were again combined into different research themes.

3.8. Sankey Diagrams

Sankey diagrams are often used to reflect the flow of energy or information in multiple networks and processes, and the diagrams use quantitative details to represent information flows, associations, transitions, etc. The Sankey diagram reflects bootstrap and weighted graphs with weight characteristics for traffic protection. At each node, the number of inflow weights is the same as the output [28]. Sankey diagrams are used to visually assess the relationships between sources, countries, affiliations, keywords, leading authors, cited sources, and author keywords, among others. In this case, rectangle diagrams were used to represent related elements with various colors, and the height of the rectangle indicates the relationship between multiple features such as country, source, famous author, and author keywords. The larger the size of the rectangle, the more relationships between components are indicated. This subsection applies the bibliometrix R-package in R, setting the parameters to authors = 15, keywords plus = 20, and counts = 20, and Figure 10 was obtained.
As can be seen, Figure 10 shows the connection between authors (left), keywords plus (middle), and authors’ nationalities (right). The area of the rectangle is proportional to the number of publications and shows the relevance of authors from the United States, China, Canada, Australia, etc., in the articles analyzed. The authors work in most of the fields; Lal, Liu, Zhang, Li, Zhou, et al. are involved in the 20 keywords shown in the figure.
On the other hand, the most common keywords in the publications were management, sequestration, climate change, forest, and dynamics. An analysis of the countries concerned by these keywords showed that all 20 countries shown in Figure 10 were involved in the study of the 20 keywords shown in the figure. Among them, authors from the United States were responsible for most of the works in addition to a wide variety of topics and had more research literature in management, sequestration, climate change, forest, and dynamics. China had an outstanding focus on the first nine keywords, with a focus on sequestration surpassing that of the United States. The third country, on the other hand, is Canada, which had a more even research fervor for each research area. It was also observed that some countries were less productive and covered fewer topics but were distributed in a more even manner.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Keyword Analysis

4.1.1. Research Hotspots

Keywords reflect the research focus of the learned topic. Therefore, through the analysis of keyword contribution mapping and grasping the distribution and occurrence of high-frequency keywords in the actual press, this study quickly grasped the hotspots, frontiers, and changing trends in this research field [29]. This subsection uses CiteSpace to integrate keywords and generate a co-occurrence network map of keywords co-occurring in this research area (Figure 11). The pruning parameters (pruning: the pathfinder and pruning the merged network) were used to create the keyword co-occurrence network map; the network included 800 nodes and 1177 links with a density of 0.0037 (Figure 11). The node size indicates the frequency of keyword occurrence; the larger the node, the more frequently the keyword occurs and the more representative of the hotspot in the domain. The node linkage indicates the strength of the association between nodes. The broad scope of the research in this research area, the diversity of research topics, and the strong research links between different research topics are reflected in Figure 11. In addition, Table 7 shows the top 20 keywords in terms of frequency, centrality, and the years in which the keywords appeared between 2002 and 2022. Table 7 shows the high frequency of management (1480), forest (1164), climate change (1132), carbon sequestration (1123), sequestration (1047), bioma (795), and dynamics (784). The keywords constitute the representative terms in this research area, reflecting the importance of forest management in this research area in response to climate change and the concentration of bioma and dynamics research among them, but their weak centrality indicates that they generate less influence. Secondly, from Table 7, the most influential studies in this research area are deforestation (0.22), eddy covariance (0.17), community (0.15), reforestation (0.14), temperature (0.13), pasture (0.11), carbon cycle (0.1), and harvest (0.1), which are keywords that infrequently appear but have a profound impact on this research field.
Therefore, according to Figure 11 and Table 7, the current research hotspots in this research area are as follows:
  • Exploiting the function of a forest carbon sink. The absorption of carbon dioxide by forests through photosynthesis may be the only sustainable way to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Therefore, in response to global climate change, theoretical studies related to forests are mainly concerned with carbon sequestration, carbon, nitrogen, storage, and stock. The next step is to conduct in-depth studies on the forest community, carbon cycle, carbon, and nitrogen dynamics to further understand the operation of forest ecosystem cycles. Among them, the study by Pan et al. showed that the world’s forests are a large and persistent carbon sink. A far-reaching study [7] and Vogt et al. showed that they play a crucial role in absorbing CO2 and mitigating climate change [30]. Even though forest carbon stocks have been studied in different locations and types, such as the fact that the density of carbon stocks at the forest edge is only 87% of that in the forest interior and the conversion of forests from broadleaf to coniferous forests makes forest carbon stocks lower [31,32].
  • Scientific and rational management of forests includes deforestation, reforestation, harvesting, fertilization, and weed control. The premise of carbon sequestration in forests is that forests have a healthy life cycle. Related forest management measures mainly include afforestation, crop rotation and extension, fertilization, and tree species selection [33]. Of these, reforestation has well-documented synergistic benefits, including biodiversity habitat, air filtration, water filtration, flood control, and improved soil fertility [34]. Moreover, deforestation and other land-cover changes are responsible for 53–58% of the difference between current and potential biomass stocks [35]. In addition, a study by Yuanming et al. showed that carbon flows from forest harvesting contributed to reducing carbon emissions [36]. Mathias and Mayer et al. showed that the addition of N through fertilization could sustainably increase soil carbon stocks in extensive forest ecosystems [37].
  • Expanding forest ecosystem services, including biodiversity, ecosystem, landscape, productivity, quality, and energy. Research suggests that modest increases in forest management intensity and carbon stocks may be consistent with the goals of managing forest biodiversity and mitigating climate change [38]. Moreover, the study by Fabian and Schwaiger et al. showed that the development of forest ecosystem services and biodiversity indicators depended on the initial state of stand properties, as well as forest management [39]. In addition, the application of diverse forest management planning at the forest landscape level can reduce trade-offs between different objectives [40]. However, Noormets et al. showed that optimal management strategies that maximize the multiple benefits of forest ecosystem services require a better understanding of the dynamics of belowground allocation, carbohydrate availability, heterotrophic respiration, and carbon stabilization in soils [41].
  • The assessment of the forest carbon sink process and the exploration of forest management models, including the evaluation of forest resources in the early stages and the assessment and evaluation of the forest carbon cycle, carbon sequestration, carbon substitution, life cycle assessment, and economic and social aspects in the later stages, involving eddy covariance, models, frameworks, management practices, and so on. First, different assessment methods have emerged, among which the eddy covariance technique has been used to measure the land–atmosphere exchange of greenhouse gases and energy around the world to study and determine the functions and trajectories of ecosystems and climate systems [42]. Moreover, the effects of different management models on the forest carbon cycle are often discussed. For example, Nunes et al. analyzed three forest management models, carbon conservation, carbon storage, and carbon substitution, based on the perspective of carbon residence time in the forest, carbon conservation, storage, and substitution [43]. Different forest management practices result in changes to the carbon cycle, which may be anticipated using a variety of evaluation techniques so that future forest management practices are accordingly altered.

4.1.2. Research History

The keyword time zone map could visually reflect the research history and change process of the research field, so the analysis was performed using CiteSpace’s time zone view to visualize the specific situation of keywords over a certain period. The pruning parameters (prune: pathfinder, prune slice network, and prune merge network) and the top N = 50 was selected to form Figure 12. The keywords in this research area evolved in three broad phases from 2002 to 2022. According to Figure 12, many new keywords were discovered between 2000 and 2004, but the number of new keywords gradually decreased over time. The development of the research field over the past 20 years was analyzed by combining the nodal years in which keywords appeared, as shown in Figure 12, the research field is divided into three main phases:
  • First, the high-frequency keywords in this research field significantly increased from 2002–2006, and the three basic research areas of forest carbon sink function, scientific and rational forest management, and expansion of forest ecosystem services all appeared in this period. Forest management focuses on growth, land use, soil organic carbon, and deforestation, while forest ecosystem service expansion is reflected in the ecosystem, biodiversity, bioenergy, and wood products.
  • Secondly, this research area has shifted its research focus to forest ecosystem services from 2007–2016, where ecosystem service, conservation, energy, diversity, landscape, and biofuel were the main research branches. In addition, research on forest carbon sink capacity and management, such as aboveground bioma, restoration, and REDD, was also involved.
  • Third, in recent years, the assessment of forest carbon sink processes and forest management models, such as life cycle assessment, has been explored from 2017–2022, and the impact of litter decomposition as a prominent forest management approach to forests will be further investigated. In addition, the impact of climate factors such as temperate and climate change mitigation on forest ecosystems is being studied, and rainforests and loess plateaus are being explored as special ecosystems. Nonetheless, it has been discovered that a warming climate may increase the uncertainty and instability of the forest.

4.1.3. Research Frontiers

CiteSpace’s burst detection evaluates the most frequently cited keywords and their importance. Keyword burst detection was used to detect the decline or rise of a keyword, and the greater the burst intensity, the more frequently the keyword appeared in a certain period, indicating that many studies related to it appeared in that period, and these keywords were called burst keywords. Figure 13 was obtained by using CiteSpace (parameter γ = 2.5, and the other parameters were the system defaults). Figure 13 shows the top 25 burst keywords in this research area, including their burst intensity as well as their start and end times. These outbreak keywords could help scholars identify emerging trends in this research area:
  • Early outbreak terms: Kyoto Protocol (16.06), CO2 (14.08), sink (12.76), wood product (12.16), budget (10.18), denitrification (9.7), and nitrogen (9.94). These terms emerged in the first two years of the study and occupied a relatively long and overlapping period, and the above buzzwords were basically macro in nature. This was because the carbon sink function of forest ecosystems was just discovered at that time, and the research mainly focused on the causes and influencing factors of changes in forest carbon sink processes. Global warming has drawn the attention of scholars to the carbon sink function of forests. As shown in Figure 13, the relationship between forests and CO2 has been widely analyzed because photosynthesis in forests is one of the important pathways for natural carbon sequestration. Moreover, wood products have been focused on as one of the important ways of long-term carbon sequestration. In addition, the Kyoto Protocol is the framework document in the field of climate change and has been widely discussed since its release.
  • After a rich macroscopic study, starting from REDD (12.98), the focus of study began to refine to microscopic areas and some special subjects, such as trade-offs (12.47), life cycle assessment (9.99), energy (8.07), biofuel (8.16), etc. Since then, the keywords have maintained their hotness for a progressively shorter period. Research on uncertainty has made researchers realize that there are many factors influencing forest carbon sink functions and the role of forest ecosystems, and there may be no universal coping strategies, but effective scientific REDD has a significant impact on forest carbon sink functions. Therefore, researchers began to pay more attention to REDD (12.98)-related factor indicators. Meanwhile, life cycle assessment (9.99) is widely used as an assessment method. In addition to recognizing the importance of controlling emission reductions, they have focused on tapping the energetic aspects of forest ecosystems, trying to use biofuel (8.16) or bioenergy as an alternative to fossil fuels.
  • The topics of trade-off (12.47), loss plateau (9.4), random forest (9.61), and ecosystem service (9.32) have become the focus of research since 2017. Scholars have tried various approaches to find the best way to coordinate the relationship between forest ecosystems, forest management, the economy, and society and to explore the best way to coordinate the benefits of carbon sinks, sequestration, and balance in forest ecosystems. Assessment (LEcA) tools are used to assess the significant potential of alternative land zoning and forest management policies on forest ecosystem services [44]. Moreover, random forest, as a flexible and practical method, is often used to simulate carbon density and estimate biomass changes in random forests [44]. In addition, the loss plateau is a special study subject, and in recent decades, the Chinese government has taken various measures to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion on the Loess Plateau [45]. Meanwhile, valuing forest ecosystem service functions, improving adoption rates, and commoditizing ecosystem services have become important research topics [46].

4.2. Co-Citation Analysis of Literature

4.2.1. Milestone Literature

Analyzing the most frequently cited and influential literature could be a strategy for exploring the research focus and core knowledge system of this research area. Research articles are an important part of the knowledge in the research field, and their quality can fully reflect the overall research level of the research field. The co-citation analysis of the literature could effectively identify the important directions of the research field. Table 8 lists the information of the top 10 articles with the highest number of occurrences in the co-citation analysis of literature in this research area, including authors, the number of citations, centrality, year of publication, and DOI number. The table was obtained by running CiteSpace default parameters. As can be seen from Table 8, Pan is the most cited author. First, the first most frequently cited article estimates the total global forest carbon sink from 1990 to 2007, indicating a large and persistent carbon sink in the world’s forests [7]. Second, R is a language and environment for statistical computing and an important research method in this research area that has been widely used in the past two years and is an important research method for future research work [47]. Immediately following, the study by Griscom et al. identified and quantified “Natural Climate Solutions” (NCS): 20 actions to conserve, restore, and improve land management to increase carbon storage or avoid greenhouse gas emissions from forests, wetlands, grasslands, and agricultural lands globally, providing a solid foundation for subsequent research [34]. In addition, the articles in Table 8 are the most cited but have low impact, with only Naudts et al. maintaining both citation frequency (62) and impact (0.14). This study suggests that climate change mitigation initiatives through afforestation and forest management have the potential to fail unless it is realized that not all forestry contributes to climate change mitigation [48]. All these articles provide a solid foundation for subsequent studies. Citations are considered to represent the quality of a study; however, this is not always the case; hence, the link between study quality and citations is a point of contention in scientometrics [49].
Citation bursts, that is, abrupt increases in citation counts, provide a useful means for tracing the evolution of research focus. This section used CiteSpace to analyze the emergence of subject categories of articles in this research area (Figure 14). All parameters were CiteSpace default parameters obtained by selecting Reference. The light blue line in the figure indicates that the article is currently not present. Bursts associated with 486 subject categories were detected, and the top 25 references with the strongest citation bursts were selected in the figure. The time interval is depicted as a blue line, and a light blue line indicates that the literature is not available now. Time intervals where citations were found to have bursts are shown as red lines, indicating the beginning and ending years of the burst duration. For example, if respiration as the main determinant of European forests’ carbon balance literature is at the top of the list, then the literature burst is between 2002 and 2005 with an intensity of 16.52.
First, a landmark piece of the literature was identified early in the study was a meta-analysis of the effects of land-use change on soil carbon stocks [50]. The intensity values of the literature for the period from 2007–2008 were relatively high, with a review of forest management strategies leading to long-term carbon sequestration in soils (33.69) [51]. The next milestone was a literature review that examined the global capacity of ancient forests for carbon sinks (36.39) [52]. This was followed by a study by Canadell et al. on managing forests to mitigate climate change (25.41) [53]. It is worth noting that a large and persistent carbon sink in the world’s forests was a milestone piece of literature with a strength value of 73.89 over a twenty-year study period, which was particularly important in this research area [7]. In recent years, an influential literature study was conducted on forest management as a key practice based on natural climate solutions (32.4) [34]. There were also studies that focused on the high sensitivity of forest ecosystems to climate change [54]. In the past two years, the literature on R-language research methodologies (27.37) and a study on the effective contribution of tree restoration to climate change mitigation (24.04) have attracted the most attention [55].

4.2.2. Clustering Analysis of Literature Co-Citations

CiteSpace was used to cluster frequently cited references in this research area to build a knowledge base in the study, which was achieved by visualizing and analyzing the literature co-citation clusters. Using CiteSpace for clustering with default parameters, this research obtained a network map of literature co-citation clusters in the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality (Figure 15). A node in the figure represents a paper, and linkages between papers reflects the existence of a co-citation relationship between the two papers. The color of the connecting line symbolizes the period when the first co-citation link was formed between the two articles, and the closer the time is to the present, the lighter the color becomes, reflecting the evolution of the research.
CiteSpace provided two metrics to judge the clustering effect and structural clarity of the map: the module value Q and the average contour value S. Usually Q € (0,1) if Q > 0.3, the delineated clusters were structurally significant; when S > 0.5, the clustering was generally considered reasonable; when S > 0.7, the clustering was convincing. Q = 0.711 and S = 0.8795 were the clusters. The silhouette represents the high similarity of articles in the clusters; the closer to 1, the higher the similarity [29]. Moreover, the automatic label addition technique of CiteSpace clustering was used to name the co-citation network clusters of the literature [56]. The results in Table 9 show the 14 clusters based on keyword co-occurrence information and their ordinal cluster numbers, sizes, silhouette values, average years, and labels, which, in the table, are the names of the clusters and the first three of the label names under the LLR algorithm. Thus, it reflects the name of the cluster, the size of the cluster, the precision of the cluster, the temporal characteristics of the literature in the cluster, and the cited literature with the research content included in the cluster. As can be seen from Table 9, the cluster numbers are labeled in a sequentially larger form starting from 0. The smaller the serial number is, the more literature is included in the corresponding cluster, which indicates that the cluster is more important in the study. Figure 15 and Table 9 show that “0#mitigation potential” is the largest cluster, indicating that many studies on mitigation potential have cited literature in this cluster. Thirteen significant clusters have contour values greater than 0.8, showing that the literature co-citation clusters in this research area are reliable.
The first major cluster is the #0 mitigation potential, with 239 articles and 0.905 silhouettes. The second and third clusters are the #1 fuel treatment effect and #2 boreal forest ecosystem, with 222 and 208 articles, respectively, with silhouette values of 0.854 and 0.805. The #0 mitigation potential is the most prominent cluster. This indicates that the main research direction in the field of forest management devoted to carbon-neutral target research is mitigation potential, which includes studies related to long-term carbon sequestration, organic carbon, etc. Professional forest management practices have some potential to reduce emissions and can have a positive effect on carbon neutrality. Since different forest management practices work differently for different types of forests, the research in this cluster focuses on finding a reliable method to credibly account for emission reductions in managed forests and the need for improved carbon accounting [57,58]. On the other hand, the studies in this cluster emphasize setting some reference standards for future forest management based on the predicted continuity of documented historical forest management practices. The second largest cluster is the #1 fuel treatment effect. Increasing forest carbon sinks and emissions reductions are important, so it is essential to integrate energy, product, and land management policies to simultaneously manage forests [59]. Meanwhile, it is important to be aware of the corresponding balance of localized practices in applying forest management to reduce wildfire risk and increase the efficiency of producing wood products [60]. However, to this day, the balance between fuel treatment effects and forest management, ecological products, and society is still being explored, and innovations in future technologies and more practical strategies in this field can help overcome these obstacles. The third cluster is the #2 boreal forest ecosystem. Boreal forest ecosystems are often the subject of research on forest management practices, and studies have shown that forest ecosystems with scientifically based thinning management strategies and appropriate pruning have greater potential for climate change mitigation [61].
Other knowledge clusters focus on different objects and studies in this research area, including #3 southeast Germany, #4 organic matter, #5 developing countries, #6 ecosystem service, #7 fossil fuel, #8 natural ecosystem, and #9 blue carbon ecosystem. Among them, the #9 blue carbon ecosystem deserves special attention. In recent years, scholars have gradually realized that mangroves also have a certain carbon storage capacity and can also contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. From the current situation, the study of mangrove carbon sequestration is complicated by including the study of hydrology and other factors, and more detailed ways and means of carbon management related to mangrove landscape and land use characteristics need to be specified to achieve more effective emission reduction targets and restoration results [62]. In addition, the development of practical forest management measures in developing countries that are committed to carbon neutrality targets has a significant role in mitigating climate change in the world, as China is currently the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2). Therefore, China plays a key role in mitigating global climate change [33]. Even forests can replace fossil fuels by harvesting forest wood and understory waste to produce bioenergy, and although there is still a trade-off between whether forests should focus on bioenergy production or carbon sinks, there is great potential for forest biomass energy and eco-products [63].

5. Conclusions

Bibliometric analysis can help scholars to quickly understand a research field. This study is the first bibliometric study of the literature in the field of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality from 2002–2022 to find the background knowledge and research frontiers in this research area. First, it is understood that the research field has a certain research base and research history, as well as a high level of attention. Secondly, it reveals an interlocking network of cooperation among countries and regions and a complex network of cooperation among authors, indicating a high level of participation in this research field by countries, regions, and authors, with particularly enthusiastic participation by the United States and China. China aims to reach peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and to achieve “carbon neutrality” (the “double carbon” goal) by 2060 [64]. The top journal in terms of impact and quantity of publications is Forest Ecology and Management. The research field has spanned different countries and different authors for different research aspects. Finally, this study discovered that several writers from various nations have conducted cross-disciplinary research on various topics in this area of study, and this research field is in a rising stage. Additionally, this study dug into four research hotspots (functions of forest carbon sinks, scientific and rational forest management, forest ecosystem services, assessment of forest carbon sinks, and forest management models), three development stages (2002–2006, 2007–2016, 2017–2022), and several research frontiers (Kyoto Protocol, CO2, sink, wood product, REDD, etc.). The literature in this research area was mined from three aspects (number of publications, salient values, and cluster types) at multiple levels, angles, and dimensions, and multiple milestones and 14 cluster types were found in this research area. Through the two parts of general statistics and knowledge base, the macro- and micro-studies were combined to gain a deeper understanding of this research area and to quickly grasp the progress of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality. The results of this study will help to reveal the important role of forest management in achieving carbon neutrality and the interaction mechanisms between forest management and forest carbon sinks, carbon sequestration, carbon balance, carbon reduction, and energy substitution, and will contribute to the achievement of carbon neutrality and the mitigation of global climate change and human welfare.
The impact of forest management on forest carbon sinks, carbon sequestration, and forest biomass energy is gradually being emphasized, and the technical and methodological aspects of forest management have become a research hotspot in this research area. However, forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality faces several challenges. For example, most scholars understand the benefits of forest management for forest ecosystems, but at this stage, forest management is relatively homogeneous, lacking organic integration of management and forest ecosystem services, and there are still many difficulties in assessing and monitoring the carbon cycle of forest ecosystems. This systematic review of this research area can help scholars to gain inspiration in carbon-neutral practice, expand the development path of forest management, and develop new coordinated management concepts and mechanisms. The future development of forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality should consider the development of new models in the context of carbon neutrality, and researchers should conduct more research and accumulate practical cases. In addition, research on forest management to promote carbon neutrality may focus on the connections between different forest management approaches and methods, the interactions, roles, and interconnections between different forest stands in different regions and their corresponding forest management approaches, further analysis of the synergy between effective forest management approaches and carbon neutrality goals, and the establishment of a unified and targeted forest carbon sink. New studies may also further analyze the synergy between effective forest management practices and carbon neutrality targets, establish uniform and relevant forest carbon sink assessment standards, forest carbon dioxide monitoring methods, forest timber harvesting methodologies, and conduct practical research on forest biomass energy for energy substitution. In addition, another possible research direction would be to investigate the inner linkage mechanism between carbon neutrality, forest management, economic development, social harmony, and human welfare, as well as to integrate multiple disciplines into forest management to promote forest carbon sinks, energy savings and emission reduction in order to facilitate the achievement of carbon neutrality.

Author Contributions

Y.Z. and J.D. provided the research idea and purpose of this study; Y.Z., X.F. and J.D. designed the research; Y.Z. and F.L. collected and analyzed the data; Y.Z. wrote the paper; J.C. and S.H. supervised, corrected, and revised the paper; X.Y. and M.W. corrected the article language and made some suggestions. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

(1) Forest Park Engineering Technology Research Center of the State Forestry Administration (PTJH15002); (2) Wuyishan National Park Research Institute Special Project (KJg20009A).

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Figure 1. The main operating interface of CiteSpace 5.7.R5 (top) and the bibliometrix R-package in R (bottom). These two interfaces are the first pages that appear after opening the software. All subsequent analyses are carried out from these interfaces.the analytical approach (a) and analysis process (b) of this paper.
Figure 1. The main operating interface of CiteSpace 5.7.R5 (top) and the bibliometrix R-package in R (bottom). These two interfaces are the first pages that appear after opening the software. All subsequent analyses are carried out from these interfaces.the analytical approach (a) and analysis process (b) of this paper.
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Forests 13 01810 g002 550
Figure 2. Annual production and average annual citation rate of research related to forest management in a carbon-neutral context from 2002 to 2022.
Figure 2. Annual production and average annual citation rate of research related to forest management in a carbon-neutral context from 2002 to 2022.
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Forests 13 01810 g003 550
Figure 3. Country collaboration map.
Figure 3. Country collaboration map.
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Figure 4. Collaboration-network map of authors.
Figure 4. Collaboration-network map of authors.
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Forests 13 01810 g005 550
Figure 5. Top 20 most published journals in the research field by 2002–2022.
Figure 5. Top 20 most published journals in the research field by 2002–2022.
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Forests 13 01810 g006 550
Figure 6. The dual-map overlay.
Figure 6. The dual-map overlay.
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Forests 13 01810 g007 550
Figure 7. The thematic evolution map.
Figure 7. The thematic evolution map.
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Forests 13 01810 g008 550
Figure 8. Thematic map.
Figure 8. Thematic map.
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Figure 9. Theme Evolution Chart.
Figure 9. Theme Evolution Chart.
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Forests 13 01810 g010 550
Figure 10. Relationship between authors (left), keywords plus (middle), and countries (right).
Figure 10. Relationship between authors (left), keywords plus (middle), and countries (right).
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Figure 11. Keyword co-occurrence mapping for forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality from 2002 to 2022.
Figure 11. Keyword co-occurrence mapping for forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality from 2002 to 2022.
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Figure 12. Research keyword time zone view map.
Figure 12. Research keyword time zone view map.
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Figure 13. Top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.
Figure 13. Top 25 keywords with the strongest citation bursts.
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Figure 14. The top 25 pieces of literature with the highest strength values in the literature co-citation analysis. The literature included in the figure are (from top to bottom). (1) Respiration as the main determinant of carbon balance in European forests. (2) Soil carbon stocks and land use change: a meta analysis. (3) How strongly can forest management influence soil carbon sequestration? (4) The human footprint in the carbon cycle of temperate and boreal forests. (5) Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. (6) Managing Forests for Climate Change Mitigation. (7) Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change. (8) Risk of natural disturbances makes future contribution of Canada’s forests to the global carbon cycle highly uncertain. (9) Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world’s most carbon-dense forests. (10) Harvest impacts on soil carbon storage in temperate forests. (11) A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. (12) A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests. (13) A synthesis of current knowledge on forests and carbon storage in the United States. (14) Impact of tropical land-use change on soil organic carbon stocks – a meta-analysis. (15) Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property. (16) Crystal Structure of a Lipid G Protein–Coupled Receptor. (17) Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage. (18) Improved allometric models to estimate the aboveground biomass of tropical trees. (19) Europe’s forest management did not mitigate climate warming. (20) Natural climate solutions. (21) Forest disturbances under climate change. (22) Soil carbon 4 per mille. (23) Dynamics of global forest area: Results from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. (24) R Core Team (2020). (25) The global tree restoration potential.
Figure 14. The top 25 pieces of literature with the highest strength values in the literature co-citation analysis. The literature included in the figure are (from top to bottom). (1) Respiration as the main determinant of carbon balance in European forests. (2) Soil carbon stocks and land use change: a meta analysis. (3) How strongly can forest management influence soil carbon sequestration? (4) The human footprint in the carbon cycle of temperate and boreal forests. (5) Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. (6) Managing Forests for Climate Change Mitigation. (7) Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change. (8) Risk of natural disturbances makes future contribution of Canada’s forests to the global carbon cycle highly uncertain. (9) Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world’s most carbon-dense forests. (10) Harvest impacts on soil carbon storage in temperate forests. (11) A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests. (12) A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests. (13) A synthesis of current knowledge on forests and carbon storage in the United States. (14) Impact of tropical land-use change on soil organic carbon stocks – a meta-analysis. (15) Persistence of soil organic matter as an ecosystem property. (16) Crystal Structure of a Lipid G Protein–Coupled Receptor. (17) Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage. (18) Improved allometric models to estimate the aboveground biomass of tropical trees. (19) Europe’s forest management did not mitigate climate warming. (20) Natural climate solutions. (21) Forest disturbances under climate change. (22) Soil carbon 4 per mille. (23) Dynamics of global forest area: Results from the FAO Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015. (24) R Core Team (2020). (25) The global tree restoration potential.
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Figure 15. Literature co-citation clustering network mapping. The text starting with # in the figure is the cluster label for that cluster.
Figure 15. Literature co-citation clustering network mapping. The text starting with # in the figure is the cluster label for that cluster.
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Table
Table 1. Key messages from forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality from 2002 to 2022.
Table 1. Key messages from forest management research in the context of carbon neutrality from 2002 to 2022.
DescriptionResults
Timespan2002:2022
Sources (journals, books, etc.)668
Documents6060
Annual Growth Rate %8.95
Document Average Age6.62
Average citations per doc33.17
References209,651
DOCUMENT CONTENTS
Keywords Plus (ID)8519
Author’s Keywords (DE)12,759
AUTHORS
Authors18,654
Authors of single-authored docs195
AUTHORS COLLABORATION
Single-authored docs237
Co-authors per doc5.11
International co-authorships %39.83
DOCUMENT TYPES
Article5491
Article: book chapter5
Article: data paper5
Article: proceedings paper159
Review390
Review: book chapter10
Timespan2002:2022
Table
Table 2. The 20 countries or regions with the highest total number of research papers published and the highest total number of citations in the study from 2002–2022.
Table 2. The 20 countries or regions with the highest total number of research papers published and the highest total number of citations in the study from 2002–2022.
RankCountryArticles
(N%)		SCPMCPMCP_RatioCountryTC
(N%)		Average Article Citations
1United States1355
(22.4%)		10223330.246United States64,745
(32.3%)		47.78
2China1024
(16.9%)		6194050.396China18,129
(9.0%)		17.70
3Canada324
(5.3%)		2201040.321Germany12,605
(6.3%)		43.77
4Germany288
(4.8%)		1301580.549United
Kingdom		11,904
(5.9%)		56.15
5Australia268
(4.4%)		1681000.373Canada10,923
(5.4%)		33.71
6Finland221
(3.6%)		143780.353Australia10,160
(5.1%)		37.91
7United
Kingdom		212
(3.5%)		1021100.519Finland7767
(3.9%)		35.14
8Brazil210
(3.5%)		116940.448France5681
(2.8%)		44.38
9Spain182
(3.0%)		91910.5Austria4967
(2.5%)		56.44
10India178
(2.9%)		136420.236Spain4862
(2.4%)		26.71
11Italy145
(2.4%)		71740.51Sweden4785
(2.4%)		36.53
12Sweden131
(2.2%)		81500.382Netherlands4701
(2.3%)		59.51
13France128
(2.1%)		56720.563Brazil4351
(2.2%)		20.72
14Japan100
(1.7%)		58420.42Italy4306
(2.1%)		29.70
15Austria88
(1.5%)		32560.636Ireland3257
(1.6%)		162.85
16Netherlands79
(1.3%)		23560.709India2980
(1.5%)		16.74
17Switzerland78
(1.3%)		34440.564Switzerland2849
(1.4%)		36.53
18Turkey67
(1.1%)		6070.104New Zealand2274
(1.1%)		36.68
19Norway66
(1.1%)		30360.545Belgium2163
(1.1%)		45.06
20New Zealand62
(1.0%)		44180.29Japan1777
(0.9%)		17.77
Table
Table 3. The top 20 most frequent collaborations between countries or regions.
Table 3. The top 20 most frequent collaborations between countries or regions.
FromToFrequency
United StatesChina259
United StatesCanada137
United StatesUnited Kingdom125
United StatesBrazil124
United StatesGermany112
ChinaCanada108
United StatesAustralia97
GermanyUnited Kingdom88
United StatesFrance79
GermanyFrance77
GermanyNetherlands71
GermanyAustria66
ChinaGermany65
ChinaAustralia62
GermanySwitzerland62
United StatesItaly60
GermanyItaly57
United KingdomFrance57
United StatesSweden56
United StatesSpain54
Table
Table 4. Top 10 authors with the highest number of publications and centrality.
Table 4. Top 10 authors with the highest number of publications and centrality.
RankAuthorsCountYearAuthorsCentralityYear
1Guomo Zhou292011Philippe Ciais0.022015
2R Lal212003Hubert Hasenauer0.022012
3Manfred J Lexer182007Anders Lindroth0.022007
4Scott X Chang172010Guomo Zhou0.012011
5Timo Pukkala152011Manfred J Lexer0.012007
6Rupert Seidl152008Seppo Kellomaki0.012007
7Seppo Kellomaki152007Changhui Peng0.012013
8Rattan Lal142007Michael Obersteiner0.012007
9Peikun Jiang142010Beverly E Law0.012011
10Arun Jyoti Nath132017Sebastiaan Luyssaert0.012011
Table
Table 5. The 20 highest h_index of journals in the research field from 2002–2022.
Table 5. The 20 highest h_index of journals in the research field from 2002–2022.
RankElementH_Index
1Forest Ecology and Management74
2Global Change Biology62
3Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment40
4Geoderma35
5Soil Biology and Biochemistry35
6Agricultural and Forest Meteorology32
7Ecological Applications32
8Science of The Total Environment32
9Biogeosciences31
10Ecosystems27
11Ecological Modelling25
12Forest Policy and Economics25
13Journal of Environmental Management25
14Catena24
15Remote Sensing of Environment24
16Biogeochemistry23
17Forests23
18Plant and Soil23
19PLoS ONE23
20Soil & Tillage Research23
Table
Table 6. Three key citation trends.
Table 6. Three key citation trends.
Citing RegionCited Regionz-Score
ecology, earth, marineplant, ecology, zoology6.905
veterinary, animal, scienceplant, ecology, zoology3.203
ecology, earth, marineearth, geology, geophysics2.403
Table
Table 7. Top 20 keywords in frequency and centrality between 2002 and 2022.
Table 7. Top 20 keywords in frequency and centrality between 2002 and 2022.
RankKeywordsCountsCentralityYearKeywordsCountsCentralityYear
1management148002002deforestation2520.222002
2forest11640.012002eddy covariance1170.172002
3climate change113202002community830.152003
4carbon sequestration112302002reforestation960.142002
5sequestration104702002temperature1760.132002
6bioma7950.022002pasture700.112003
7dynamics78402002carbon cycle780.12002
8carbon62902002harvest520.12005
9nitrogen61602002boreal forest2100.092003
10land use5990.012002budget730.092002
11storage5860.012002biodiversity conservation680.092008
12forest management5400.022002cost670.092002
13impact52402003dioxide450.092002
14growth4410.012002framework440.092002
15biodiversity4280.012002general model50.092003
16land use change4220.022002emission3290.082002
17model4160.022002respiration2000.082002
18ecosystem3980.012002conversion780.082003
19climate3890.022002clear cut270.082004
20stock3840.012005management practice260.082006
Table
Table 8. The 10 most frequent papers in the literature co-citation analysis. (Rank 1) A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests. (Rank 2) R Core Team (2020). (Rank 3) Natural Climate Solutions. (Rank 4) Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. (Rank 5) How strongly can forest management influence soil carbon sequestration? (Rank 6) Forest disturbances under climate change. (Rank 7) Europe’s forest management did not mitigate climate warming. (Rank 8) Managing Forests for Climate Change Mitigation. (Rank 9) Harvest impacts on soil carbon storage in temperate forests. (Rank 10) Soil carbon 4 per mille.
Table 8. The 10 most frequent papers in the literature co-citation analysis. (Rank 1) A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World’s Forests. (Rank 2) R Core Team (2020). (Rank 3) Natural Climate Solutions. (Rank 4) Old-growth forests as global carbon sinks. (Rank 5) How strongly can forest management influence soil carbon sequestration? (Rank 6) Forest disturbances under climate change. (Rank 7) Europe’s forest management did not mitigate climate warming. (Rank 8) Managing Forests for Climate Change Mitigation. (Rank 9) Harvest impacts on soil carbon storage in temperate forests. (Rank 10) Soil carbon 4 per mille.
RankCountsCentralityYearCite References
11850.082011Pan YD, 2011, SCIENCE, V333, P988, DOI 10.1126/science.1201609
21460.012020R Core Team, 2020, R LANG ENV STAT COMP, V0, P0
3940.062017Griscom BW, 2017, P NATL ACAD SCI USA, V114, P11645, DOI 10.1073/pnas.1710465114
4800.022008Luyssaert S, 2008, NATURE, V455, P213, DOI 10.1038/nature07276
5690.032007Jandl R, 2007, GEODERMA, V137, P253, DOI 10.1016/j.geoderma.2006.09.003
6680.022017Seidl R, 2017, NAT CLIM CHANGE, V7, P395
7620.142016Naudts K, 2016, SCIENCE, V351, P597, DOI 10.1126/science. aad7270
8560.052008Canadell JG, 2008, SCIENCE, V320, P1456, DOI 10.1126/science.1155458
9550.062010Nave LE, 2010, FOREST ECOL MANAG, V259, P857, DOI 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.12.009
10540.022017Minasny B, 2017, GEODERMA, V292, P59, DOI 10.1016/j.geoderma.2017.01.002
Table
Table 9. The 10 most frequent papers in the literature co-citation analysis.
Table 9. The 10 most frequent papers in the literature co-citation analysis.
Cluster IDSizeSilhouetteMean (Year)Label (LLR)
02390.9052017mitigation potential; long-term carbon sequestration; organic carbon
12220.8542007fuel treatment effect; fire management; Canada forest
22080.8052003boreal forest ecosystem; soil carbon sequestration; forest management practice
31580.8562010southeast Germany; forest biomass; tropical peat
41500.852015organic matter; organic carbon stock; soil carbon stock
51410.932000developing countries; terrestrial CO2 source; reconciling apparent inconsistencies
61290.8562014ecosystem service; continuous cover forestry; temperate forest landscape
71150.9272011fossil fuel; forest biomass production; energy biomass
8420.9562005natural ecosystem; methane emission; southwestern USA ponderosa
9380.9792016blue carbon ecosystem; hydrogeomorphic setting; mangrove blue carbon stock
10190.99520003-pg model; fast-growing eucalyptus grandis plantation; physiological regulation
11160.9982008Mediterranean cambisol; southwest Amazon region; different agricultural management system
12150.9852018biotic driver; functional identity; subtropical forest
1380.9972003rural communities; marketing ecosystem service; ecosystem service
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Zhang, Y.; Fei, X.; Liu, F.; Chen, J.; You, X.; Huang, S.; Wang, M.; Dong, J. Advances in Forest Management Research in the Context of Carbon Neutrality: A Bibliometric Analysis. Forests 2022, 13, 1810. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111810

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Zhang Y, Fei X, Liu F, Chen J, You X, Huang S, Wang M, Dong J. Advances in Forest Management Research in the Context of Carbon Neutrality: A Bibliometric Analysis. Forests. 2022; 13(11):1810. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111810

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Zhang, Yanqin, Xinhui Fei, Fan Liu, Jiaxin Chen, Xianli You, Shanjun Huang, Minhua Wang, and Jianwen Dong. 2022. "Advances in Forest Management Research in the Context of Carbon Neutrality: A Bibliometric Analysis" Forests 13, no. 11: 1810. https://doi.org/10.3390/f13111810

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