Systematic analysis of the flash drought research: contribution, collaboration, and challenges

Compound extreme events, such as flash drought, have received wide attention in recent decades due to their far-reaching effects on the ecosystem. Thus, a new concept of flash drought has begun to spread globally in the scientific community, and it is continuously being developed. This study offers for the first time an overview of the global trends in flash drought research from 2000 to 2021. The analysis was based on the Scopus database in order to investigate the publication trends, contributions, collaborations, and challenges on a global scale. Furthermore, collaboration analysis was performed to detect collaboration networks within the flash drought research field. A total of 76 studies were published during the study period. The research output grew exponentially with an average growth rate of 30% per year. The challenging issues in the field of flash drought research are the search for appropriate definition of flash drought, the development of effective early warning systems and the scarcity of high-resolution data. By presenting the details of the evolution of this new conceptualization in drought research, our study highlights the main pathways of scientific progress and stimulates future research.