Exploring the emerging evolution trends of disaster risk reduction research: a global scenario

This study aimed at appraising the scientific research on disaster risk reduction (DRR) and to identify their evolutionary trajectory between 1990 and 2019. This study used published research articles on DRR retrieved from the database of Web of Science on December 9, 2019, which hosted reliable and efficient high-impact scientific research. To assess the previous studies on DRR, we used "Disaster Risk Reduction" as the key term for the studies published during the period using bibliometric innovative techniques. The results reveal that the published studies on DRR from 1990 to 2019 had an annual growth rate of about 3%, which connotes that the studies on DRR have been increasing over time especially during the period of study. The number of articles witnessed a drastic increment with about 110, 123 and 129 articles in the years 2015, 2016 and 2018, respectively, and there was a decline in 2017 (99 articles) during the same period. This study highlights five of the various innovations that can be highly useful in DRR practice; these include geographic information system and remote sensing, disaster risk insurance, social networking systems and materials that are resilient to disasters. Such technologies are considered very successful, but they are not always easy to utilise. This study concludes that the DRR-related research hotspots are focused primarily on disaster management and science, environmental science, climate change and ecosystem services.