Abstract:
The multifaceted role of South Asian fisheries and aquaculture includes improving
nutritional status, livelihood development and poverty alleviation of the associated
nations. Application of scientific knowledge to utilize the full potential of South Asian
fisheries and aquaculture has been discussed in many scientific forums, conferences and
other published literature. Systematic analysis of this published literature may provide
insight into the future research directions and identify the potential impact of South Asian
fisheries and aquaculture research. In this context, a scientometric analysis in South Asian
fisheries and aquaculture research was conducted for the period of 2000-2017 using Web
of Science database™. Quantitative analysis of growth trends in publications, prolific
authors, and journals, was carried out by using ‘R’ programming platform and package
‘bibliometrix’. The ‘VOSviewer’ software tool was employed to identify the key-word cooccurrence
of published research articles in South Asian fisheries and aquaculture
research. A total of 1755 articles related to South Asian fisheries and aquaculture were
retrieved. Findings of the present study indicated that the, growth rate of articles in
indexed publications is declining. India was the most influential country with the highest
number of publications (1159). Indian Journal of Fisheries was the top journal with the
highest article count (160). Keyword co-occurrence analysis has identified 10 distinct
clusters related to the various themes of fisheries and aquaculture research. Fisheries
management was the dominant research area with the highest number of associated
keywords (52). Present study also suggested that strong country-level collaboration with
developed countries, increase funding for research infrastructure and effective
participation in international research arena are mandatory for more productive fisheries
and aquaculture research output in South Asia.
