Geodiversity and geoheritage: Detecting scientific and geographic biases and gaps through a bibliometric study

• Published in: The Science of the total environment Vol. 659; pp. 1032 - 1044
• Main Authors: Ibáñez, Juan-José, Brevik, Eric C., Cerdà, Artemi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01-04-2019
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Geodiversity; Geoheritage; Geoparks; Google Scholar; Pedodiversity; Scopus; Geoparks; Scopus; Geoheritage; Geodiversity; Pedodiversity; Biodiversity; Google Scholar
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.443

Many scientists have recognized that there is diversity in nature, including biodiversity, geodiversity, and pedodiversity. Studies in biodiversity date back as far as the 1700s, but geodiversity and pedodiversity studies are much more recent, dating to the late 1970s to early 1980s. Given that we are now approaching 40 years of geodiversity and geoheritage work, this study was undertaken to determine areas that have been well addressed and where current gaps are. This was accomplished by reviewing the publications in the journal “Geoheritage”, the Scopus and Google Scholar databases, and established geoparks according to UNESCO records. It was found that geodiversity studies typically do not include the findings or utilize the techniques of biodiversity and pedodiversity research, despite the fact that common definitions of geodiversity include soils. Including the findings and techniques of bio- and pedodiversity would expand geodiversity work. Likewise, geoheritage preservation sites are not geographically balanced, with European countries, Brazil, Australia, and China creating the large majority. The European and East Asian countries, especially China, have dominated in the establishment of geoparks. The most pressing need in future studies is more balanced geographic distribution, as the current strong slant towards a limited portion of the world cannot adequately capture (on the research front) and preserve (on the geoparks front) global geodiversity. Finally, there is a need investigate whether the spatial patterns of biodiversity are idiosyncratic or are also a characteristic of abiotic resources, permitting the standardization of diversity research methods. This review contends that there are intriguing similarities in biodiversity, geodiversity, and pedodiversity patterns that should be explored, something that would benefit all of these research areas.
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•Geodiversity and pedodiversity should receive as much attention as biodiversity.•Pedodiversity is part of geodiversity but rarely considered in geodiversity studies.•Pedodiversity studies followed biodiversity methodologies, geodiversity did not.•Geodiversity has focused on the proposal of geoparks, geotourism, and education.•Researching relationships between bio-, pedo- and geodiversity would be fruitful.