Mapping the knowledge structure and thematic evolution of climate resilience research

Climate resilience research has expanded rapidly over the past decade, yet its knowledge base remains fragmented and geographically uneven. This paper examines 369 peer-reviewed articles from the Web of Science Core Collection (2016–2025) to understand who is creating this knowledge, what topics are prevalent, and what are the gaps. A bibliometric approach comprising keyword co-occurrence mapping, co-citation analysis, and Bradford’s Law was applied using VOSviewer and the Bibliometrix (Biblioshiny) package in R. The volume of publications has been continuously increasing with a peak of the citation impact around 2020. The United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia have a disproportionate share of output, but India, Bangladesh and several African countries have a growing contribution particularly on the issue of agricultural vulnerability and adaptations of the smallholder. Thematically, the discipline is clustered about the vulnerability, food security, adaptive capacity and climate variability with ecosystem-based adaptation, migration and climate governance remaining relatively under-explored. The Wageningen University, the University of Leeds and CGIAR centres anchor institutional networks but Australian and Asian institutions have become especially active since 2020. The results indicate that the field is truly interdisciplinary and globally connected, yet remains shaped more by the Global North than the communities that have to bear the greatest burden of climate. The review suggests better global and South-South partnerships, research funding and inter-sectoral policy coordination across agricultural, water, disaster, and rural development policy as recent global assessments also stress. These steps can synergise a more anticipatory, equitable and data-driven approach to climate risk.