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Topic · Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Soil and Land Suitability Analysis

Soil and Land Suitability Analysis is a research topic within Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law. Science Explorer counts 15k research works in it since 1950. 10.4% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the assessment of land suitability for various agricultural activities using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), multi-criteria analysis, and remote sensing techniques. The research covers topics such as agricultural land use, soil evaluation, crop suitability, and decision support systems for sustainable development.

  • GIS
  • Land Suitability
  • Multi-Criteria Analysis
  • Agricultural Land Use
  • Remote Sensing
  • AHP Technique
  • Sustainable Development
  • Soil Evaluation
  • Crop Suitability
  • Decision Support System
Research works
15k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.5k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.4%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+26%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
19% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Soil and Land Suitability Analysis

Which countries lead Soil and Land Suitability Analysis research?

By volume, China and India publish the most (634 and 611 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 634 works
  2. 2 India 611 works
  3. 3 Indonesia 583 works
  4. 4 Nigeria 285 works
  5. 5 Türkiye 239 works
  6. 6 United States 194 works
  7. 7 Brazil 190 works
  8. 8 Iraq 185 works
  9. 9 Ethiopia 178 works
  10. 10 Iran 165 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 19.4%India: 18.7%Indonesia: 17.9%Nigeria: 8.7%6 others listed: 35.3%19%largest
China634 · 19.4%India611 · 18.7%Indonesia583 · 17.9%Nigeria285 · 8.7%6 others listed1,151 · 35.3%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Soil and Land Suitability Analysis research?

By volume in 2022-now, Indian Council of Agricultural Research publishes the most Soil and Land Suitability Analysis research, followed by Chinese Academy of Sciences and Universitas Gadjah Mada.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Indian Council of Agricultural ResearchIndia 68 works
  2. 2 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 55 works
  3. 3 Universitas Gadjah MadaIndonesia 32 works
  4. 4 IPB UniversityIndonesia 31 works
  5. 5 Islamic Azad University, TehranIran 30 works
  6. 6 Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural ResearchEthiopia 27 works
  7. 7 University of BaghdadIraq 23 works
  8. 8 University of AnbarIraq 21 works
  9. 9 University of BrawijayaIndonesia 20 works
  10. 10 Chinese Academy of Agricultural SciencesChina 19 works

Who are the leading researchers in Soil and Land Suitability Analysis?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Soil and Land Suitability Analysis include George Davey Smith, Guangming Zeng and Francisco Herrera.

  1. 1 George Davey Smith United Kingdom 435k citations
  2. 2 Guangming Zeng China 204k citations
  3. 3 Francisco Herrera Spain 141k citations
  4. 4 Tasawar Hayat Pakistan 135k citations
  5. 5 Yong Sik Ok South Korea 126k citations
  6. 6 Rattan Lal United States 126k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Soil and Land Suitability Analysis?

The most cited paper in Soil and Land Suitability Analysis is "STATISTICS FOR SPATIAL DATA" (Noel Cressie, 1992), with 8,945 citations. Next come "The World Reference Base for Soil Resources" (5,631) and "On digital soil mapping" (3,685).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 STATISTICS FOR SPATIAL DATA Noel Cressie · Terra Nova Open access Sep 1992 8,945
2 The World Reference Base for Soil Resources Otto C. Spaargaren, Jozef Deckers Book chapterOpen access 1998 5,631
3 On digital soil mapping Alex B. McBratney, Maria de Lourdes Mendonça-Santos, Budiman Minasny · Geoderma 8 Aug 2003 3,685
4 Random forest classifier for remote sensing classification Mahesh Pal · International Journal of Remote Sensing 2005 3,327
5 Some geometric aggregation operators based on intuitionistic fuzzy sets Zeshui Xu, Ronald R. Yager · International Journal of General Systems Aug 2006 2,376
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Soil and Land Suitability Analysis research done?

The largest centres of Soil and Land Suitability Analysis research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tehran (Iran), Baghdad (Iraq) and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia).

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 172 works
  2. 2 TehranIran 72 works
  3. 3 BaghdadIraq 58 works
  4. 4 Addis AbabaEthiopia 53 works
  5. 5 JakartaIndonesia 50 works
  6. 6 CairoEgypt 48 works
  7. 7 YogyakartaIndonesia 42 works
  8. 8 BogorIndonesia 39 works
  9. 9 SurabayaIndonesia 36 works
  10. 10 BandungIndonesia 36 works
See Soil and Land Suitability Analysis on the map

Where is the best place to study Soil and Land Suitability Analysis?

Among universities, judged by research, Wageningen University & Research, Addis Ababa University and Hawassa University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 19.24%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Wageningen Universit…King Saud UniversityAddis Ababa UniversityHawassa University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Wageningen University & ResearchNetherlands 68.225.4%5.9×9 +47.4%
2Addis Ababa UniversityEthiopia 64.716.9%11.8×11 +44.0%
3Hawassa UniversityEthiopia 64.115.6%40.1×16 +218.1%
4King Saud UniversitySaudi Arabia 61.217.3%3.5×14 +272.9%
5Beijing Normal UniversityChina 59.931.0%3.2×10 +26.9%
6University of the PunjabPakistan 59.520.9%8.2×10 +17.5%
7University of Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 56.626.6%1.7×12 +27.8%
8Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural ResearchEthiopia 52.92.5%54.5×27 +115.6%
9China Agricultural UniversityChina 52.716.9%6.0×14 +200.6%
10University of TehranIran 52.019.3%6.8×16 -51.6%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Soil and Land Suitability Analysis, country by country

Is Soil and Land Suitability Analysis research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 26% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Soil and Land Suitability Analysis.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Soil and Land Suitability Analysis as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.020% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%0.030%Soil and Land Suitability Analysis0.021% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Soil and Land Suitability Analysis over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Soil and Land Suitability Analysis10.9% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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