Analysis of hot research topics on environmental migration in a just transition

Abstract Global environmental issues have become one of the most prominent risk issues in society, and it is of great theoretical and practical importance to study the intrinsic correlation between environmental change and population migration in a just transition. Based on the Web of Science core ensemble database (WOS) and National Knowledge Infrastructure database (CNKI) sources, CiteSpace visual bibliometric software was used to construct a map of research hotspots in the field of environmental migration. The study found that the research hotspots of environmental migration mainly include (1) migration caused by environmental pollution; (2) migration caused by the construction of environmental protection projects; (3) migration caused by environmental protection activities; (4) migration caused by environmental degradation; (5) migration caused by climate change; (6) migration caused by environmental disasters; and (7) migration caused by environmental improvement activities. We propose the following recommendations for environmental migration research: (1) strengthen research on the predictive capability of environmental change-population migration models; (2) make use of China's useful exploration in resettlement fields such as engineering resettlement, ecological migration, and poverty alleviation resettlement to develop environmental migration policies and regulations and strategic planning; (3) establish a cloud platform for environmental changes and population migration-related databases; and (4) strengthen the exchange and cooperation between Chinese research scholars in the field of environmental migration and international research institutions.