Research networks on the access of drinking water in Mexico City (2004–2018)

The present study focuses on the research communities that have been working on various aspects of the access to drinking water in Mexico City. We analyze their academic production published in mainstream journals during the 2004–2018 period. We implemented a bibliometric analysis of the co-authorship network on this subject in order to identify these research communities. We found that only 33% of the scholars researching this problem are affiliated to the National System of Researchers. The research production of these scholars is more visible and has a higher impact in international journals than in local journals. Our results indicate that the research production on the access to drinking water in Mexico City is just a small fraction (8%) of the whole Mexican production on this subject. Most of the respective research networks involve scholars from local institutions, mainly the National University of Mexico (UNAM). There are very few international collaborations and the most frequent collaboration involves scholars from UNAM and France. Our analysis also shows a positive trend in the production and impact of the research groups involved in this area of knowledge. However, we found that they have a minimum impact in advancing possible solutions to the problem associated with the access to drinking water in Mexico City.