Bibliometric Analysis of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) Application in Land Subsidence from 2000 to 2021

Abstract

Land subsidence is one of the serious natural disasters which can cause heavy casualties and economic losses. As a vital method, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) can provide quick and efficient solutions for analysis. Currently, most reviews on InSAR application in land subsidence only focused on single types of land areas, such as the land around groundwater and land of the mining area. There is a lack of discussion on all types of land areas. This study thus aims at conducting a bibliometric literature analysis of the existing literature from 2000 to 2021 to fill this gap. The authors used scientific mapping methods to analyze the InSAR applications in land subsidence so that researchers and practitioners can comprehend the procedure. Then, the authors identified the major research areas, development milestones, evolutionary stages, and the transaction dynamics of evolutionary stages. Knowledge maps of five aspects were applied and analyzed in this research, including temporal development analysis, countries and institutions, major research disciplines, high-frequency terms, and cocitation of high-citation papers. The results reveal that the research of land subsidence monitoring with InSAR is in the stage of diffusion from developing many tools and techniques to integrating with other research areas. Overall, the bibliometric results combined with evolutionary stages provide a holistic picture of the status quo and future trends in InSAR application in land subsidence.