Soil Chemical Pollution and Military Actions: A Bibliometric Analysis

Contrary to the optimistic expectations three decades ago, global military expenditure is increasing rather rapidly, fueled by the increasing intensity of international tensions. As a consequence of this, the military-caused soil pollution gains in importance. On the basis of a bibliometric analysis of 3500 articles, it is obvious that the level of interest in this topic has been rather fluctuating in the last decades, but in the last years, more than two hundred and fifty new publications have been appearing annually. The majority of publications are authored by US, Chinese, and Western European authors. Five main research areas could be identified by the cluster analysis of the following keywords: Heavy metal pollution, water resource pollution, consequences of soil pollution in the food chain, pollution by organic components and soil remediation, and analytic method development. The most central problem of research is heavy metal contamination. The basic topics of research are risk management, water contamination, and the depleted uranium problem. There is a further need to study the possibilities of decreasing of level of chemical pollutants, especially heavy metals.