Water quality in Northern Province of Sri Lanka: A bibliometric analysis of publications 1960–2021

Abstract

Groundwater contamination derived from human activities including farming is a serious problem threatening water security in the Northern Province (NP) of Sri Lanka. Gathering all existing research knowledge on the province’s water resource base to create a digital repository is a key action in the 3-year action research project on water security. Papers gathered in the repository showed that water quality, particularly salinity in groundwater and its contamination was a prominent theme in research over the past two decades. Thus, the scope of this bibliometric study is restricted to published work on water quality pertaining to the North during 1969–2021. Publications listed in four electronic databases, namely, Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar yielded 118 scholarly publications. This paper provides an overview of the publication types and distribution, titles of journals and conferences, authorship, institutions, countries, themes, and keywords used. Final 20 years of study period saw a substantial growth in publication rate of water quality papers in the NP with journal articles and conference papers being the dominant types at 63% and 35%, respectively. Authors from 52 different institutions contributed to production of these publications, 93% of whom represented public sector institutions in Sri Lanka. University of Jaffna was in the lead position in numeric terms (n = 82), followed by the University of Peradeniya (n = 28). A significant 81% of the papers accounted for studies on water contamination, some indication of the degree of concern for this aspect among the research community. Around 65% of papers have been published in a wide range of international journals, some of which are less well established. This tendency has implications for the scientific output in terms of its quality, peer review process, and in turn also for usefulness of the work in the local context and in policy making.