Abstract
Municipal wastewaters are abundant low-strength streams that require adequate treatment and disposal to ensure public and environmental health. This study aims to provide a comprehensive summary of municipal wastewater research in Europe in the 2010s in the form of bibliometric analysis. The work was based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science) and carried out using the R-package bibliometrix for bibliometric data analysis and the software VOSviewer for science mapping. Analysing a dataset of 5645 publications, we identified the most influential journals, countries, authors, institutions, and publications, and mapped the co-authorship and keyword co-occurrence networks. Spain had produced the most publications while Switzerland had the highest average citations per publication. China was the most collaborative country from outside of Europe. Analysis of the most cited articles revealed the popularity of micropollutant removal in European municipal wastewater research. The keyword analysis visualized a paradigm shift from pollutant removal towards resource recovery and circular economy. We found that current challenges of resource recovery from municipal wastewater come from both technical and non-technical (e.g., environmental, economic, and social) aspects. We also discussed future research opportunities that can tackle these challenges.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 131267 |
| Journal | Chemosphere |
| Volume | 284 |
| Early online date | 21 Jun 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Dec 2021 |
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge Prof. Mark van Loosdrecht (Delft University of Technology) for providing valuable comments.Funding
Juliana Marcal is supported by a PhD studentship from the Water Informatics Science and Engineering (WISE) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT), funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Grant No. EP/L016214/1. This project was supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering under the Research Fellowship scheme (RF_201718_17145).
Keywords
- Bibliometric analysis
- Circular economy
- Europe
- Micropollutant
- Municipal wastewater
- Resource recovery
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Engineering
- General Chemistry
- Environmental Chemistry
- Pollution
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
