A bibliometric analysis on scientific production of Geographical Information System (GIS) in Web of Science

Geographical Information System (GIS) has been used in various disciplines including Environmental Sciences, Forestry, Ecology, Engineering and Information Science. In general, a large number of studies were conducted by using GIS applications. This paper examines publishing patterns of GIS articles indexed by Web of Science in three indexes; Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). Bibliometric analysis was then used to investigate the patterns of indexed articles in multiple aspects such as i) country and organisation affiliations, ii) distribution of articles by year iii) research areas, iv) document types, v) languages and vi) authorship. Searching facility and analysis was conducted by using analysis tool provided by Web of Science. This study aids researchers to further understand the publishing status of GIS-based studies from 2002–2011 and enhance GIS applicability in a wide number of areas. Furthermore, it encourages researchers to use Web of Science as a tool to identify emerging interests and potential scholars for academic partnership and consultation.