| dc.description.abstract | Abstract: Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), like many other regions in the world, are areas
that are prone to hydrometeorological disasters, which threaten livelihoods and cause economic
losses. To derive LAC’s status in the field of flood risk-related research, we conducted a bibliometric
analysis of the region’s publication record using the Web of Science journal database (WoS). After
analysing a total of 1887 references according to inclusion-exclusion criteria, 302 articles published in
the last 20 years were selected. The research articles published in the period 2000–2020 revealed that
Mexico, Brazil, and certain South American countries such as Chile, Peru, and Argentina are more
productive in flood risk research. Scientific research is increasing, and most of the available studies
focus on lowland areas. The frequently-used keywords are generic, and there is often verbatim
copying from the title of the article, which shows the poor coherence between the title, abstract, and
keywords. This limited diversification of keywords is of little use in bibliometric studies, reducing
their visibility and negatively impacting the citation count level. LAC flood studies are mainly related
to hydrometeorological assessments, flood risk analyses, geomorphological and ecosystem studies,
flood vulnerability and resilience approaches, and statistical and geographic information science
evaluations. This systematic review reveals that although flood risk research has been important in
the last two decades, future research linked with future climatic scenarios is key to the development
of realistic solutions to disaster risks. | |
