A bibliometric review of past trends and future prospects in urban heat island research from 1990 to 2017

The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon is among the most evident features of human impact on the Earth’s system. This phenomenon has been widely observed and documented in many cities around the world. UHI-related publications have increased rapidly over the last three decades. However, because of a refined methodology and widening scope, a holistic understanding of research patterns and issues related to UHI research is lacking. Although others have summarized developments in UHI studies, these publications have focused on describing the current state of research rather than uncovering research trends and prospects. In the present study, we examined the evolution of UHI-related research from 1990 to 2017 and applied a scientometrics approach to identify research trends. The characteristics of publication outputs, key scientific disciplines, and cooperation between countries and institutions were determined by a citation analysis. We also discuss research trends, including future directions, approaches, and expected data. We identified two potential directions for UHI research through the results of key co-word clustering and discriminant analyses: negative impacts of UHI on public health and strategies to mitigate and adapt to UHI effects. We provide a broad review of the development of UHI research that may inspire future studies on the UHI phenomenon by new researchers in this field.