Progress in urban metabolism research and hotspot analysis based on CiteSpace analysis

Urban metabolism research can quantify the movements and transformations of matter and energy in cities, and can provide insights for alleviating urban resource and environmental problems. Therefore, it has attracted extensive attention from urban ecology researchers. However, there has been no comprehensive review of the research, and it’s unclear how various perspectives have developed. In this study, we used the CiteSpace software to analyze the development of urban metabolism research and its current status from multiple perspectives, with the goal of revealing research hotspots and predicting future trends. We found that urban metabolism has gradually developed from a concentrated ecological or environmental discipline to a multidisciplinary one with three key knowledge bases: characteristics of urban ecosystems, development of urban metabolism theory, and methodological frameworks. The research focus has gradually shifted from quantifying environmental impacts to analyzing the internal processes of urban systems. Simple socioeconomic systems have gradually been replaced by complex systems of interactions among nature, society, and the economy. The evolution of energy and carbon metabolisms in the context of climate change has become a research hotspot. Developing countries have increasingly become the focus of research. In addition, we found that spatially explicit analysis is becoming popular, but that the supporting methods have not yet become a major research area. Based on these trends and the current situation, we proposed future research directions in the context of climate change, increased spatial analysis, and increased case studies, and provided targeted policy guidance to diagnose urban problems.