A Bibliometric Review of Publication Trends in the Application of Landscape Metrics in Urban and Regional Planning

Abstract Landscape metrics have been gaining popularity in urban and regional planning since the early 2000s. Primarily used to assess landscapes’ ecological composition and configuration, the field has expanded to include studies on the environment, land use studies, ecosystem services, spatiotemporal changes in land uses, perception studies, and peri-urban studies. However, a summarization and review of published literature in landscape metrics and its application in urban and regional planning is missing. The present study proposes to familiarize researchers with an overview of the publications in the field. Hence, the review aims at identifying the most prominent authors, papers, journals, keywords, and countries conducting studies in the subject domain. The Web of Science database was selected owing to the broader coverage. The selected articles from the Web of Science database are analyzed using Bibliometrix and Vosviewer software to gather relevant publication trends and identify the most significant networks. The present paper is limited to bibliometric analysis and has identified advances in using landscape metrics in urban and regional planning. The paper also indicates the potential future research areas.