Bibliometric Analysis of Highly Cited Publications on Mangrove Sustainability

This bibliometric analysis synthesizes 39 years (1987–2025) worth of highly cited publications on mangrove sustainability, using 2465 publications from the Web of Science and Scopus. This study offers researchers and policymakers a clear map of the core knowledge and emerging areas in this field. It highlights influential publications and traces the field’s development through bibliometric analyses of keywords, citations, co-authorships, and geographic collaborations. Research on this area crystallizes around threat assessment, management, ecosystem services, and operationalizing blue carbon, strongly supported by remote sensing and aligned with SDGs 13, 14, and 15. Catherine E. Lovelock is the most prolific author, and Science of the Total Environment is the leading journal. Geographically, the Global North (USA, Australia, and Europe) remains dominant, while China asserts institutional and country-level leadership as a hybrid collaborator in the Global South. The collaboration network reveals a hub-and-spoke structure and a research capacity gap in mangrove-rich nations across Africa and South America. Global events, environmental issues, and modern technologies are driving the development of new theories, concepts, and techniques regarding mangrove sustainability. This study reveals key research imbalances and concludes that achieving mangrove sustainability requires robust South–South collaboration and autonomous research capacity in climate-vulnerable regions.