Bibliometric Analysis of Remote Sensing Research Trend in Crop Growth Monitoring: A Case Study in China

Remote sensing of crop growth monitoring is an important technique to guide agricultural production. To gain a comprehensive understanding of historical progression and current status, and future trend of remote sensing researches and applications in the field of crop growth monitoring in China, a study was carried out based on the publications from the past 20 years by Chinese scholars. Using the knowledge mapping software CiteSpace, a quantitative and qualitative analysis of research development, current hotspots, and future directions of crop growth monitoring using remote sensing technology in China was conducted. Furthermore, the relationship between high-frequency keywords and the emerging hot topics were visually analyzed. The results revealed that Chinese researchers paid more attention on keywords such as “vegetation index”, “crop growth”, “winter wheat”, “leaf area index (LAI)”, and “model” in the field of crop growth monitoring, and “LAI” and “unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)”, appeared increasingly in frontier research of this discipline. Overall, bibliometric results from this CiteSpace-aided study provide a quantitative visualization to enrich our understanding on the historical development, current status, and future trend of crop growth monitoring in China.