Introduction

Water shortage is one of the world’s most pressing issues in the twenty-first century, which affects every aspect of human life. Contrary to worldwide rising water demand, freshwater resources are declining in many parts of the world due to many factors such as population growth, environmental changes, urbanization, and irrational usage (Mohorjy and Grigg 1995; Rijsberman 2006; Mekonnen et al. 2016; Siddique et al. 2020; Necibi et al. 2021). According to an estimate, the world population is expected to grow 9.7 billion in 2050 and 11 billion by 2100. By 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2019; WHO, 2019). The per capita water resources are also likely to decrease in the Middle East due to the environmental changes and population increase. This will undoubtedly have a social and economic impact on the region (Chenoweth et al., 2011). Thus, the imbalance between population and available water resources would have an adverse socio-political and socio-economic impact on the society (Haddadin 2001). Moreover, the United Nations (UN) classified the Middle East region, including Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, as water-scarce nation. Almazroui (2011) classified the Saudi climate as arid and semi-arid, with low rainfall and highly evaporative, resulting in water scarcity (Assiri and Darfaoui 2009).

The KSA is on the brink of acute water shortage due to limited water resources, an arid environment, a lack of rivers, and permanent natural water bodies. Several research studies also reported the increasing water demand due to urbanization, and population growth, which is usually met by the dwindling and depleting water supply (Al-Ibrahim 1990; Ouda 2013). However, the uncertainty associated with climate change, such as rising temperature, decreasing rainfall, reference evapotranspiration, loss of soil moisture, and increasing water demand from agricultural, domestic, and industrial sectors due to population growth and industrial development, is putting more pressure on the available water resources. A significant portion of the water demand in Saudi Arabia is fulfilled by the non-renewable groundwater sources, followed by renewable sources (surface and water), desalinated water, and treated wastewater (TWW) (Chowdhury and Al-Zahrani 2015; Tarawneh and Chowdhury 2018). Some other studies reported the increase in the annual water demand of KSA (Al-Zahrani and Baig 2011). According to Chowdhury and Al-Zahrani (2013), it was 20740 MCM in 2000 and increased to 23000 MCM in 2005, an average demand increase of 1.7% per year. Another report states an 8% (3392 MCM) increase in drinking water consumption until 2018 (Argaam, 2018). In 2019, the KSA’s per capita daily water consumption stood at 263 L, expected to grow 12.3 million m3/day by 2040 (Council 2021).

On the other hand, the existing KSA population is projected to grow 32 million by 2025 and 50 million by 2050 Drewes et al. (2012). Given the growing population, infrastructure development project, and increasing freshwater demand, KSA has taken several concrete measures to address the issues related to planning and sustainable freshwater supply. Desalination is one of the most important sources of freshwater supply, which has excellent development potential. KSA has heavily invested in the desalination water industry; also it is independent of the climatic conditions, sustainability criteria, and limited supply. The establishment of Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) in 1966 under the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) was a milestone in this direction. As of October 2020, Kingdom had 33 desalination plants in 17 different locations run by SWCC, which fulfil approximately 69% of the freshwater supply gap. The KSA is the largest producer of the desalinated water globally, accounting for 22% of global production and 54% of GCC’s total. As of 2019, 60% of the total demand of KSA is fulfilled from desalinated water. By the end of 2030, MEWA would like to extend 90% of urban water supply from desalination (Council 2021; Ministry of Environment and Water 2021).

Furthermore, some remarkable initiatives in this direction are also worthy of mentioning here, such as developing the National Water Strategy, increasing the use of treated wastewater, adopting advanced and sustainable water desalination technologies, increasing the holding capacity of a surface water dam, and public-private partnerships to develop sustainable water facilities (Ouda 2014). In compliance with Saudi vision 2030, the MEWA also initiated the “Qatrah” program in March 2019 to rationalize water usage in the Kingdom by reducing water consumption by 24% in 2020 and 43% by the end of 2030 (Media, 2021). Realizing the importance of scientific research to find sustainable solutions to water scarcity, KSA has established many water research centers and advanced research programs across the Kingdom in universities and organizations and is committed to providing research funding and support.

Literature review

A significant amount of literature is produced by the Saudi and non-Saudi researchers addressing various research problems of water and associated social, economic, and environmental issues in the Saudi, MENA, and global context. Ghaffour et al. (2013) discussed desalination costing due to the techno-economic evaluation, which affects the water cost variation, energy consumption, and cost trends of various desalination technologies. Kim et al. (2017) demonstrated the design and development of a sustainable device capable of extracting atmospheric water from the air at a low humidity level of 20% without additional energy requirement. Gupta et al. (2012) discussed and highlighted different recycling and wastewater treatment methods concerning basic principles, costs, maintenance, suitability, selection parameters, etc. Zyoud et al. (2016) measured the qualitative and quantitative aspects of pharmaceutical wastewater literature of Arab countries. They compared it with Turkey, Iran, and Israel, and Saudi Arabia tops the pharmaceutical wastewater research. Zyoud and Fuchs-Hanusch (2015) assessed the desalination research productivity of the Arab world and highlighted the leadership of KSA in desalination research. Similarly, a couple of other studies demonstrated the leading role of Saudi Arabia in scientific research, such as Zyoud and Zyoud (2020) observed Saudi Arabia on the top in climate change research among the Arab world countries.

Similarly, KSA ranks six globally in the area of forwarding osmosis in desalination and wastewater treatment (Ang et al., 2019). According to Tanaka and Ho (2011), Saudi Arabia’s worldwide rank on desalination research was 18. Likewise, Bador et al. (2020) analyzed the global wastewater research output indexed in Web of Science in 2019–2020; China and the USA were the leaders in wastewater research; however, Saudi Arabia could not find a place in the top 20.

Some research studies assessed the scientific output of the Arab world and Africa in a specific domain. Zyoud and Zyoud (2021) highlighted the development trends of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) literature published by the Arab world. Zyoud et al. (2014) assessed the toxicology literature produced by 13 Arab countries. Wambu and Ho (2016) conducted the bibliometric assessment of drinking water research in Africa. However, a comprehensive scientometrics analysis of the literature published on water planning and management (WPM) in Saudi Arabia is missing. Therefore, the topic has great significance, especially concerning the national water strategy and Saudi vision 2030. Such a study would also prove instrumental to policymakers and funding agencies understanding the trends and planning future research strategies. The present study will investigate the various dimensions and characteristics of the literature on WPM, published with Saudi affiliation and indexed in Web of Science. The following research questions are formulated to conduct the study:

  1. (a)

    What are the publishing trends of WPM research in KSA?

  2. (b)

    What are the most productive authors and organizations of WPM in KSA?

  3. (c)

    What are the most prominent journals and document types of WPM in KSA?

  4. (d)

    What are the highly cited authors and publications in the field of WPM in KSA?

  5. (e)

    What are the authorship and collaboration patterns of WPM research in KSA?

  6. (f)

    What are the current research themes/keywords in the literature on WPM?

Methodology

Research methodology focused on the usage of data retrieved from the Web of Science. The search query involved the following: TS = (“Water management” OR “water planning” OR “water resources” OR “Integrated Water” OR “Water governance” OR “Water sustainability” OR “Water socio-economic” OR “Water demand management” OR “Water footprint” OR “Water demand” OR “Water harvesting” OR “Water conservation” OR “Water pricing” OR “Water lifeline” OR “Water rights” OR “Water for peace” OR “Water reuse”) AND AD = (“Saudi Arabia”). The date of data extraction is 14/02/2021. The initial search results have retrieved 711 papers. The results are further refined by an article or early access or proceedings paper or review articles in inclusion and exclusion criteria. Twelve non-peer review items such as editorial materials, meeting abstracts, notes, retracted publications, corrections, and discussion are also excluded. After the title and abstract screening of each record, 14 irrelevant documents were removed from the analysis. Six hundred and eighty-five results between 1981 and 2020, consisting of journal articles (n = 606), conference papers (n = 63), reviews (n = 54), and early access (n = 12), are finally considered in data analysis. The data’s accuracy was ensured by repeating the process by one team member of the research group. Data analysis was performed using various tools and software, including MS Excel (v16.0), VOS viewer (version 1.6.16), and Biblioshiny (version 3.04), Aria and Cuccurullo (2017), and BibExcel. Figure 1 portrays a four-phase search and selection approach arranged in such a way as to include publications that could be used to perform a reliable bibliometric analysis.

Fig. 1
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Four-phased flow chart of data extraction and filtration process

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Results and analysis

Table 1 portrays the holistic overview and features of the dataset considered in the analysis part.

Table 1. Main information about data
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Document type

Table 2 highlights the share of document types on WPM research by Saudi scientists. The major portion of WPM research (TP = 562) items published in “article” form with the highest citation count and h-index (TC = 9237; h-index = 47); followed by (TP = 49) publications as “review” with TC = 4009 and h-index = 26. The share of “proceeding paper” is (TP = 39) with a citation count and h-index of TC = 87 and h-index = 6, while the count of “article-proceeding paper” is (TP = 24) with TC = 262 and h-index = 10. It is interesting to note that the average citation per paper (C/P = 81.82) and average citation per cited paper (C/CP = 95.45) of “review” items are far higher than the other format like “article” (C/P = 16.44), (C/CP = 19.24); “article-proceeding paper” (C/P = 10.92), (C/CP = 11.91).

Table 2. Document-wise water management publications in Saudi Arabia 1981–2020
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Yearly publications and citation trends

The yearly research productivity and citation structure of WPM by Saudi researchers from 1981 to 2020 is interpreted in Table 3. The research publications started to appear in 1981, and the very first decade recorded ten publications. Within the next 5 years, the publications count doubled and then shows a sudden decrease until 2000. Afterwards, steady growth has been recorded until 2011. From 2011 onwards, the publication counts are constantly increasing with a few exceptions. The highest publications (TP = 117) on WPM in KSA are recorded in 2020, followed by TP = 84 in 2017 and TP = 75 in 2019. However, the highest citation count, TC = 1897, is observed in 2016, followed by TC = 1610 in 2013 and TC = 1552 in 2017. Surprisingly, the highest citation per publication (C/P) is observed at 64.86, 53.85, and 42.37 in 2011, 2012, and 2013, consecutively. A score of 20 h-index appeared during the years 2015–2017. A relative value showed in 2013 (h-index = 19) with the citation (h-core) reaching its maxima (1444) in this year.

Table 3. Citation structure of water management in Saudi Arabia 1981–2020
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Figure 2 describes publications and citation trends in WPM from 1981 to 2020 in KSA. The increase in publications and cited publications is evident and distinct.

Fig. 2
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Publications and citation trends in water management 1981–2020

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Country collaboration

Table 4 shows the top 10 leading countries with higher research collaboration with KSA in the WPM subject domain. The table highlights the citation count, citation impact, h-index, and the collaborating countries and continents. The analysis shows Egypt on top having the highest research collaboration (TP = 113) with KSA. The USA is found to be on rank 2 (TP = 85), followed by Pakistan (TP = 58), China (TP = 52), and India (TP = 44). However, the highest citation count (TC = 2998) is received by the USA, followed by India (TC = 2536) and China (TC = 1206). India is on the top in citation impact (C/P = 57.64), followed by the USA (C/P = 35.27). Egypt is on the bottom in terms of average citation per publication (C/P = 7.11). The highest collaboration is made by the Asian countries, followed by Europe and North America.

Table 4. Highly collaborating countries
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Collaborating organizations

Table 5 highlights the top ten leading collaborating institutions from KSA in WPM research. It is observed that King Saud University (KSU) leads the way in WPM research with 196 publications, citation count TC = 3448, and the highest h-index score of 28. King Abdulaziz University (KAU) is in the second position with 138 publications, TC = 2168, and h-index = 27; King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) produced 77 publications with citation count = 3319 and h-index = 22. It is worthy to note that KAUST is having the highest average citation per publication (C/P = 43.10), King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) (C/P = 35.41), and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) (C/P = 34.74). The Riyadh region has contributed the highest number of publications, 237, followed by Mecca region, 219 publications, and Eastern region, with 77 research publications.

Table 5. Leading collaborating organizations in KSA
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For abbreviations, refer to Table 2.

The most prolific Saudi researchers

Table 6 lists the top 10 most influential authors on water management in KSA from 1981 to 2020. Sen, Z. of King Abdulaziz University has published the highest number (TP = 18) of research publications, followed by Ali, I. of Taibah University (TP = 16), and Elhag, M. of King Abdulaziz University (TP = 15), respectively. The publications count is observed wholly scattered over the years with no detected pattern.

Table 6 The top 10 Saudi researchers of WPM in Saudi Arabia
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However, a relationship between citation count, average citation, and h-index is being observed as Ali, I. of Taibah University, Ghaffour N., and Amy G., both affiliated to KAUST, have been regarded as the three most influential Saudi researchers in the WPM domain in terms of citation count, average citation per publication, and h-index.

The most preferred publication sources

Table 7 highlights the ten most influential journals that collectively published 26% of the research of total literature on WPM in Saudi Arabia during the given period. The Arabian Journal of Geosciences is found to be the most prominent journal with TP = 40 publications; followed by Desalination and Water Treatment with TP = 25 publications; Water is in the third position with TP = 22 publications. However, the journal “Desalination” is a highly impactful source of publications in citation count (TC = 1186), average citation per publication (C/P = 56.48) h-index = 12. Other journals with higher impact are the Journal of Cleaner Production with TC = 315, C/P = 26.25, and h-index = 8, followed by “Desalination and Water Treatment” where TC = 292, C/P = 11.68, and h-index = 7. Among the ten most prominent journals, Elsevier and Springer each published three journals.

Table 7 Most influential journals on water management in Saudi Arabia
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Bibliographic coupling of source

Bibliographic coupling (BC) is a similarity measure of scientific literature. It is primarily based on the idea that the two articles that cite similar references are expected to address the related or the same research issues. Figure 3 illustrates the bibliographic coupling among selected journals. The size and color of the circles specify the BC level and coupling clusters. The journals having five or more publications are included, and 25 of 318 journals meet the criteria. The Arabian Journal of Geosciences shows the highest occurrence of the 40 documents, 215 citations, and a link strength of 485. Likewise, the journal “Desalination and Water treatment” displays the second-highest occurrence with 25 papers, 292 citations, and total link strength of 417, followed by “Journal of Membrane Science” 9 documents, 439 citations, and total link strength of 221. The most closely related journals are distributed into clusters. The clusters’ connections can be described using quantitative network indicators. Bibliographic couplings of journals in Water Management and Planning literature in Saudi Arabia are distributed into the five clusters and visualized using the VOS viewer package.

Fig. 3
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Bibliographic coupling of journals with a citation threshold of 5 and 14 citations

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Keyword analysis and hot topics

The most used authors’ keywords in WPM Saudi literature are highlighted in Figure 4. The keywords up to a minimum occurrence of 8 are considered, and hence out of 2176, only 29 meet the threshold. The distance and size of the bubble indicate the occurrence of the keywords and their associational links. The top four keywords appeared more than 30 times. The keyword “Saudi Arabia” having the strongest relationship with the highest occurrence 56, followed by the “Desalination” that appears 43 times, water reuse 32, and “climate change” appears in 31 publications. VOS viewer has generated five clusters of these 29 keywords. Cluster one (red) has eight keywords, Adsorption, Desalination, Forward osmosis, modeling, Reverse osmosis, Wastewater treatment, Water reuse, and Water treatment. Accordingly, other clusters represented by green, blue, yellow, purple, and light blue indicate associational links (Figure 4).

Fig. 4
figure 4

Keyword’s co-occurrences of 29 with a threshold of 8 occurrences

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Keyword’s evolution

The thematic evolution of keywords during the last 40 years is illustrated in Figure 5. It shows a transformational shift, and during 2001–2019, some new research areas such as water demand, water treatment, desalination, irrigation, groundwater, and remote sensing are evolved. Some popular areas that emerged in 2019–2021 are adsorption, desalination, climate change, and GIS.

Fig. 5
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Thematic map of keywords evolution (the years 1981–2000, 2001–2020)

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Bibliographic coupling of countries

Figure 6 illustrates the bibliographic coupling of countries published in water management in Saudi Arabia with the minimum threshold of 5 documents of a country. Of the 74 countries, 30 meet the threshold. The publication count is considered and distributed in eight clusters in the countries with the highest link strength. The figure suggests the frequent coupling among Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the USA, Pakistan, China, and India.

Fig. 6
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Bibliographic coupling of countries published in water management in Saudi Arabia with the threshold of 5 documents 54 citations.

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Bibliographic coupling of institutions

Figure 7 portrays a bibliographic network of the most influential intuitions publishing on water management in Saudi Arabia. Among the most dominant Saudi institutions in coupling are King Saud University, King Abdulaziz University, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. However, the prominent foreign institutions in coupling are Jamia Millia Islamia, Texas A&M University, Delft University of Technology, and Mansoura University.

Fig. 7
figure 7

Bibliographic coupling of the most influential intuitions publishing on water management in Saudi Arabia.

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Authorship pattern

The data analysis shows that the collaborative authorship pattern is prevalent in WPM research in Saudi Arabia as 87% (n = 596 of 685) of research papers resulted from collaborative research. The highest numbers of papers (n = 119; 17.37%) are produced by three authorships with citation score TC = 2885, followed by two authors (n = 115, 16.79%), fours authors (n = 107, 15.62%), and five authors (n = 90, 13.14%) with second-highest citation score TC = 2729. Only 89 (13%) research is contributed by single authorship (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8
figure 8

Authorship pattern of water management in Saudi Arabia publications

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Highly cited articles

Table 8 exhibits the bibliographic information of the top ten highly cited articles on water planning and management. The highest citation score of an article on WPM by Saudi researchers is 952, and a minimum of 150, published between the years 2011 and 2018. The research themes of highly cited articles have focused on a wide range of topics such as water recycling, water desalination, water harvesting, climate change impact, removal of pollutants by nanomaterials, water, energy sustainability, and removal of arsenic. The article “Chemical Treatment Technologies for Waste-Water Recycling-An Overview” by Gupta, V. K. published in “RSC Advances” journal the highest citation count (n = 952) and an average score of 95.20 citations per year, followed by the article “Technical Review and Evaluation of the Economics of Water Desalination: Current and Future Challenges for Better Water Supply Sustainability” by Ghaffour N. published in “Desalination” journal in 2013 with citation score TC = 691, and CPY = 76.78. However, the greatest normalized total citations (NTC = 25.22) were recorded for the article under the title “Water Harvesting from Air with Metal-Organic Frameworks Powered by Natural Sunlight” by Kim, H. published in “Science” journal during the year 2017.

Table 8 The ten most frequently cited articles were published between 1981 and 2020.
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Country collaboration map

Figure 9 illustrates the world collaboration map on WPM in KSA. The map shows the top 20 collaborating countries; Egypt is having the highest number of collaborations (n = 113) with Saudi researchers, followed by the USA (n = 83), Pakistan (n = 57), China (n = 55), and India (n = 44). Overall, KSA is having extensive research collaboration with scientists worldwide on water planning and management.

Fig. 9
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Country collaboration map (top 20 countries)

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Discussions

Saudi scientists’ research productivity on water planning and management (WPM) was dispersed through various research documents and domains. Most WPM scientific writings are written in “articles,” followed by “review,” “proceeding paper,” and “article-proceeding paper.” This would reflect the authors’ preference and inclination. The average citation per paper and average citation per cited paper for “review” articles are much higher than for other formats such as “article” and “article-proceeding paper.” Such a trend may be attributed to institutional policy related to the promotion or other influential factors. This finding agrees with Alhibshi et al. (2020) on bibliometric analysis of neurosciences research productivity in Saudi Arabia. A similar conclusion has been pointed out by Butt et al. (2020) and Cadore et al. (2020). Likewise, Rashid et al. (2021) reached a similar conclusion while working on scientometrics analysis of 43 years of research in social support in education.

The rise in publications and cited publications is visible and distinct in WPM from 1981 to 2020 in KSA. The yearly research productivity and citation structure revealed that research publications began to appear in 1981. In the first decade, she recorded ten publications, followed by a 5-year rise in publications and a sudden decline until 2000. Following that, the growth is steady until 2011. The number of publications has been steadily growing since 2011, with a few exceptions. The year 2020 has the most WPM publications in Saudi Arabia. In 2011, 2012, and 2013, the highest number of citations per publication was reported. Higher education institutional development, emerging ranking patterns, accreditation, qualification pursuits, recruitment of high-quality staff, participation of more nationals in research platforms, and the launch of KSA Vision 2030 are significant factors attributed to growth in research productivity.

The leading countries with higher research collaboration with KSA in the WPM subject domain were Egypt, the USA, Pakistan, and India. The USA, India, and China, on the other hand, earn the most citations. In terms of average citations per publication, Egypt ranks last. Asia has the highest level of cooperation, followed by Europe and North America. King Saud University, King Abdulaziz University, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology were the top collaborating institutions from Saudi Arabia in WPM research. Industrial contacts, relationships and ties with related water departments and authorities, fund-raising patterns, outreach research joint ventures, and experience gained over time may reflect their fame.

Sen, Z. of King Abdulaziz University, Ali, I. of Taibah University, and Elhag, M. of King Abdulaziz University were the topmost prominent writers on water resources in Saudi Arabia from 1981 to 2020. The publications count is observed wholly scattered over the years with no detected pattern. In terms of citation count, average citation per publication, and h-index, Ali, I. of Taibah University, Ghaffour N. of KAUST, and Amy G. of KAUST have been identified the three most prominent Saudi researchers in WPM domain.

The Arabian Journal of Geosciences, Desalination and Water Treatment, and Water were the most prominent journals in Saudi Arabia during the study period, publishing 26% of the total literature on WPM. However, in terms of citation count and average citation per article, and h-index, the journal “Desalination” is a highly influential source of publications. The Journal of Cleaner Production and “Desalination and Water Treatment” are two other journals with a more substantial influence. Elsevier and Springer both published three journals among the ten most prestigious journals. The Arabian Journal of Geosciences had the highest occurrence of the document and relation weight about the bibliographic coupling among selected journals, followed by “Desalination and Water Treatment” and “Journal of Membrane Science.” The most closely linked journals are grouped in clusters, which can be represented using quantitative network indicators. The VOS viewer software was used to analyze the bibliographic couplings of journals in Saudi Arabian Water Management and Planning literature, divided into five clusters.

The top authors’ keywords in Saudi WPM literature are “Saudi Arabia,” “Desalination,” water reuse, and “climate change.” However, the top keywords among the clusters created by the VOS viewer are Adsorption, Desalination, Forward osmosis, modeling, Reverse osmosis, Wastewater treatment, Water reuse, and Water treatment. During the last 40 years, the thematic evolution of keywords has seen a transformational change. New research areas such as water demand, water treatment, desalination, irrigation, groundwater, and remote sensing have emerged. Adsorption, desalination, climate change, and GIS are the hot topics of 2019–2021.

The bibliographic coupling of countries with the minimum threshold of 5 documents per country revealed that 30 countries met the threshold out of 74. The countries with the highest relation intensity and publication count are grouped into eight clusters, indicating that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the USA, Pakistan, China, and India are coupled frequently. The bibliographic coupling of the most prominent Saudi institutions publishing on water resources revealed that King Saud University, King Abdulaziz University, and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology are among the most potent Saudi institutions in coupling. Jamia Millia Islamia, Texas A&M University, Delft University of Technology, and Mansoura University are prominent international institutions that show a strong relation in bibliographic coupling.

The data analysis reveals that collaborative research is prevalent in Saudi WPM literature, as evidenced by the number of research papers produced via collaborative research. Three authorships produce the maximum articles, followed by two authors, four authors, and five authors, with single authorship contributing a tiny amount of research. The importance of social support in the educational context due to an increasing trend of inclusion and diversity in the education field is highly stressed upon by Maassen (2016); Wen et al. (2017); and Rashid et al. (2021). Similar conclusions were outlined by Ul Haq et al. (2020) while measuring Saudi Arabia’s health sciences research productivity.

The highly cited papers on water planning and management revealed that all articles published between 2011 and 2018 received citations ranging from 952 to 150. Highly cited papers focus on a wide range of topics such as water conservation, water desalination, water storage, climate change effects, pollution removal by nanomaterials, water, energy sustainability, and arsenic removal. The article “Chemical Treatment Technologies for Waste-Water Recycling-An Overview” by Gupta, V. K. published in “RSC Advances” journal received the highest citation score, followed by the article “Technical Review and Evaluation of the Economics of Water Desalination: Current and Future Challenges for Better Water Supply Sustainability” by Ghaffour N. published in “Desalination” journal in 2013. However, the greatest normalized total citations recorded for the article under the title “Water Harvesting from Air with Metal-Organic Frameworks Powered by Natural Sunlight” by Kim, H. published in “Science” journal during the year 2017.

Overall, KSA has comprehensive water preparation and management research partnership with scientists all over the world. Among the top collaborating countries, Egypt has the maximum collaborations with Saudi researchers, followed by the USA, Pakistan, China, and India. For researchers and industry professionals interested in the concept and interpretation of WPM, these bibliometric findings provide a valuable guide and knowledge on current research directions. This result is consistent with that of Ang et al. (2019), who concluded their studies on research patterns in desalination and wastewater treatment over the last decade.

Conclusions

The current work reviewed the literature on water planning and management published between 1981 and 2020 using bibliometric and visualization methods. A total of 685 documents were examined from the Web of Science database during the research period. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United States, and Pakistan had the highest research publications, citations, and research collaboration rates. Nonetheless, when it comes to the citation impact, the United States is on the top. The highest research-producing organizations in water planning and management were King Saud University and King Abdulaziz University. In terms of publications count, the most prolific authors were Sen Z. of King Abdulaziz University, Ali I. of Taibah University, and Elhag M. of King Abdulaziz University. However, it is interesting to note that Ali I. leads the top position in total citations, citation impact, and h-index. Ghaffour N. and Amy G. are both associated with KAUST. Arabian Journal of Geosciences, having a publication scope in hydrology, hydrogeology, and hydrochemistry, is the first choice among Saudi researchers. Water recycling, water desalination, water harvesting, climate change effects, pollution reduction by nanomaterials, water, energy sustainability, and arsenic removal were among the hot research areas published between 1981 and 2020. The article titled “Chemical Treatment Technologies for Waste-Water Recycling-An Overview” by Gupta, V. K. published in RSC Advances journal acquired the highest CPY. The greatest NTC was recorded for the article under the title “Water Harvesting from Air with Metal-Organic Frameworks Powered by Natural Sunlight” by Kim, H., published in Science journal. The country collaboration and partnership map showed a significant collaboration between Saudi Arabia and Europe, America, Asia, and Australia. These relations, in particular, are thriving in terms of water management and planning.

Author contribution

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Dr. Abdulaziz Almulhim

Mohammad Aqil

Shakil Ahmad

Prof. Isam Mohammed Abdel-Magid

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