Iran-Water Resources Research

Iran-Water Resources Research

Urmia Lake Drying up Crisis in the Mirror of Domestic Researches: A Scientometric Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Hashem Atapour 1
Najibeh Shenavar 2
Mohammad Taghi Sattari 3
1 Associate Professor, Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of Education Science and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
2 Ph.D. Student, Department of Knowledge and Information Science, Faculty of Education Science and Psychology, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
3 Associate Professor, Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran.
10.22034/iwrr.2024.430684.2733
Abstract
The drying up of Urmia Lake is one of the main concerns of the academic community, environmentalists and publics, especially the inhabitants of Urmia Lake basin. The drying up of this lake has many economic, social, environmental and health consequences, and it is expected that the governors of the country will face major challenges, such as challenge of population migration. In this research, all papers on the drying up of Urmia Lake in Persian language which were published in domestic journals were examined and analyzed from the scientometric perspective. So, common tools in scientometrics as well as the data collected from Islamic World Science Citation database were used. It was tried to discover and analyze the patterns of collected data by answering the 9 questions posed in this research. Results showed that between 1378 and 1401 (Persian calendar), a total of 998 researchers have published 1005 papers on the subject of Lake Urmia. Meanwhile, Javad Bahmanesh from Urmia University was the most prolific author with 28 papers (2.79% of all papers). Furthermore, Urmia University with 250 papers and University of Tabriz with 162 papers were the most prolific universities that have published papers on the Urmia Lake topics. This shows that the drying up of Urmia Lake has been one of the most important concerns of universities in East and West Azerbaijan Provinces located on shores of Urmia Lake. Water Resources Research Journal, which is published in Persian by the Iranian Water Resources Association, has published the highest number of papers in the subject of Urmia Lake with 39 articles. To conclude, the results showed that the academic community reaction to the drying up of Lake Urmia was at relatively good level in terms of conducting research and publishing its results in journals. Therefore, regarding the scientific potential of the water engineering community in the country in dealing with water and environmental crises, the government and its subdivisions can more confidently benefit from the research results of academics to face with the upcoming crises. In this regard, relevant bodies can use researchers and co-author networks identified in this research to form working groups and think tanks.
Keywords
Urmia Lake Drying Up
Water Resources Management
Scientometric
Urmia University
University of Tabriz

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 15 December 2023
  • Revise Date 01 March 2024
  • Accept Date 24 March 2024