%0 Journal Article %T Co-citation Analysis of Human-Environment Relationship in Geomorphology from 1970 to 2018 %J Physical Geography Research %I University of Tehran %Z 2008-630X %A Rahdan Mofrad, Mohammad %A Ramesht, Mohammad Hossein %A Saffari, Amir %D 2019 %\ 12/22/2019 %V 51 %N 4 %P 733-760 %! Co-citation Analysis of Human-Environment Relationship in Geomorphology from 1970 to 2018 %K Human %K geomorphology %K environment %K Citespace %K WOS %R 10.22059/jphgr.2019.290658.1007447 %X Introduction Geography has always been based on the three basic elements of human, the environment and the relationship between them. Depending on what the concept of man has been in different eras, it has led to the formation of numerous approaches such as classical geography, regional, spatial and phenomenological. However, the introduction of a systematic approach to geography had many implications including the formation of the human ideal which is called "sustainable development", and led to the participation of different branches of environmental science in sharing and providing solutions for achieving sustainable development. A review of past research shows that Geomorphology has a closer look at the relationship between humans and the environment. It should, therefore, be examined that what has Geomorphology to offer the global environmental change debate and how might this contribution be framed. To answer this statement, the views of scientists must be examined through the process of research related to the relationship between man and the environment during the short life of geomorphological knowledge and this is exactly what was used in this study with the help of CiteSpace software for citation analysis. Using this method, we can examine the relationships between the factors influencing the production of a particular research along with its historical trends in explaining the intellectual structures of knowledge. The purpose of the present study is to use the data available in the Web Of Science database and CiteSpace software to analyze researchers spatially and temporally; Clustering strategic keywords with the help of indicators such as centrality and finally, examining the thoughts of influential researchers in each cluster in order to understand the scientific structure of knowledge in the field of human-environment relationship in geomorphology Material and Methods In this study, CiteSpace software was used for statistical analysis of scientific citation data. Thus, in the first step, all the researches from 1970 to 2018 were extracted through web filtering (CiteSpace raw data provider) and after monitoring, a set of 456 articles was obtained. After entering this data into the software, charts of the quantities of articles and citations, journals and active countries/institutes, burst-detection, country/institute co-citation maps and co-author map were prepared for further analysis. Then, the present research period was categorized into seven clusters by calculating the centrality of keywords and using the year of production of each word. Each cluster that encompasses a specific time period was analyzed with the help of parameters such as the number of research and citations, the most strategic keywords, the most cited and most famous authors, the external scientific influencers factors, the relationship of other keywords to the strategic word in the tf-idf chart. It was also tried to study the trends of geomorphological knowledge in each of the clusters according to the domestic writers' research and comparing with the results obtained from CiteSpace software. Results and Discussion According to co-citation analyses, the leading geomorphology journal in terms of number of research and citation indexes among all the journals indexed in the WOS database indicates the importance of geomorphological knowledge in addressing the issue of human-environment communication among the various branches of environmental science. The analysis of the distribution of countries and institutes in relation to the research shows that the results are consistent with the Pareto law. It can also be pointed out that countries' backgrounds influence their ranking as top countries in terms of number of studies although the results show that the research topic is more important for countries. According to the authors' co-citation map, the core of the researchers is made up of authors such as Phillips, Schumm, Goudie and Gregory. The results of comparing the Burst-detection and the In-network citation indicate a low citation among authors with high Burst-detection. Violation of this rule in the case of Schumm shows that in addition to presenting a new idea, he has remained an important citation index throughout the entire period studied. Keyword analysis shows that "Geomorphology, climate change and Holocene" have the highest frequency, "Geomorphology and vegetation" have the highest sustainability and "environmental change, climate change and human impact" have the most Burst-detection. The centrality index also identified the most strategic words that resulted in the clustering of the entire research period into seven clusters to identify the scientific structure of knowledge in the present study. Conclusion According to the information obtained until 2000, the focus of most geomorphologists was on geomorphology knowledge as a general trend of environmental science research that was most influenced by global conferences on climate and human environment. The geomorphologists' systematic view is quite evident in order to provide a solution to the issues between the landscape and human impact in the second period between 2000 and 2002. Co-citation studies in 2002-2003 suggest a new approach to solving problems in human-environment interactions under the heading of combined geo-ecological research in geomorphological knowledge. In the fourth period, in 2003-2005, geomorphologists have used the fluvial Geomorphology-related topics to better illustrate human impacts on the environment. In the next period (2005-2008) was made a rethinking of the geo-archeological studies of ancient times and early humans. Also a common point of most research in this period is the use of river/sedimentary Geomorphology and vegetation data which includes the strategic keywords of the previous period (2005-2003) and the next period (2009-2008) respectively. Because of the use of the sediment keyword and thus a more specialized perspective at environmental protection, the sixth period can be cited as a turning point in determining the extent of geomorphologists' involvement in human-environment research. In the last period, the 'Environmental Change' strategic keywords remained unchanged for 9 years (unlike all six previous periods in the 17 years ending 2009 with 35 strategic keywords) which shows that geomorphologists have reached an agreement in human and environmental research. And more importantly, it may be the answer to the basic question in the introduction to this study; what has geomorphology conducted to offer the global environmental change debate? and how might this contribution be framed in the field? %U https://jphgr.ut.ac.ir/article_74878_b8ef7129ae26de222cfe46f344f6c5a7.pdf