Wetlands are one of the most biodiversity-rich ecological landscapes and have been called the “Kidneys of the Earth” and “City’s green lung”. Researches and practices in the field of wetland have been a hotspot of international attention for many scholars in recent years. In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the research progress and development trend in the field of wetland, this paper employed the Web of Science core collection database (SCIE and SSCI), together with the analysis tools self-provided by WoS, Derwent Data Analyzer and topic clustering model kmeans, to conduct bibliometric analysis of literatures on wetland. The data were retrieved from the literatures published during the period of the past fifteen years (2006-2020). The analysis dimensions included trends in the number of articles published, countries/regions, institutions, citations, research hotspots, etc. The results showed that from 2006 to 2020, the annual number of publications in the field of wetlands worldwide exhibited a steady increase, and the number of citations was high; the top three countries in terms of the number of publications were the United States, China and the United Kingdom, with the United States far exceeding other countries in terms of the number of publications, accounting for about 20%. Major contributing institutions include Chinese Academy of Sciences, U.S. Geological Survey, University of Florida, Louisiana State University, and Sun Yat-sen University. Through the clustering analysis of the titles and abstracts of the wetland literature in the past fifteen years, it is found that the research hotspots and research directions mainly focus on 14 areas, including artificial wetlands, biodiversity, carbon cycle and carbon stock changes, ecological response of wetlands, biogeochemical processes, ecohydrological processes, wetland management, species richness, species invasion, microbiological research, wetland pollution and restoration, geological evolution of wetlands, mangrove species composition and community characteristics, as well as classification and evaluation of wetland geological surveys.

Wetland, Bibliometric Analysis, Research Trends, Mangrove, Carbon Cycle, Biogeochemistry, Ecological Response, Wetland Management