A comprehensive bibliometric and metadata analysis review of flash flood and rainfall studies in the Arabian Peninsula

Abstract

Flash floods are among the most destructive natural disasters, posing risks to an increasing number of areas because of the growing incidence of extreme rainfall events. Considerable interest has been drawn to the modeling of flash floods in the arid region of the Arabian Peninsula (AP). This work provides comprehensive bibliometric and metadata analyses of studies on flash floods and rainfall in the AP, clarifying the related trends and future research directions. Different bibliometric software tools are used to analyze 289 publications indexed in Scopus and published in 1975–2024, with the results providing an overview of key metrics such as the number of publications over time, citation rates, keyword analysis, institutional cooperation, and author contributions. Metadata analysis reveals various subfields of flash floods, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps to be addressed in future studies. A notable increase in the number of publications since approximately 2010 is observed, with most studies concentrating on Saudi Arabia. The key identified research gaps include the need for rainfall analysis based on minimum interevent time to improve the performance of hydrological analysis. Moreover, we underscore the importance of the economic and life-cycle assessments of mitigation measures and dam safety re-evaluation based on updated hydrological data and urban development trends, outlining further gaps to support future research and sustainable flood management in the AP. Although this review focuses on the AP, it serves as a valuable guide for researchers studying flash floods in other arid and semiarid regions.