Visual Analysis of Landscape Aesthetic Evaluation Based on Bibliometric Methods

In recent decades, landscape aesthetic evaluation has been one of the research hotspots in the field of Landscape Science and Ecology, and Landscape Science, Ecology and other related disciplines have been integrated at multiple levels in the research. In order to sort out and summarize the research process and results in the past decade, with a view to find future research trends, we retrieved and downloaded papers on landscape aesthetic evaluation from the WOS database and analyzed them using a bibliometric method based on mathematical statistics. We used Excel to perform a basic analysis of the growth trends in the number of articles, source journals and countries. Co-citation analysis, Cluster analysis, and Keyword co-occurrence analysis were performed with Citespace, and visual graphs were generated. Based on the combing of landscape aesthetic evaluation research, we analyzed and discussed the research frontier and its evolution, key literature and research hotspots, development trend and knowledge structure in this field, and conclude that: (1) the research in the field in recent decade can be divided into the period of theoretical foundation construction, research system improvement and diversified development, (2) Research methods have developed from mainly evaluating landscape photos to the comprehensive use of GIS, VR, Eye-tracking, EEG testing and other technological means, and (3) research hotspots have expanded from Ecology, Scenic beauty evaluation and Landscape management to Rural landscape, Urban public space and Land use, representing the future development trend.