The Past Two Decades in Disaster Information Management: Academic Contributors and Topical Evolution

Abstract

Academic Research in Disaster Information Management has been conducted over more than two decades worldwide. The scholarly community, numbering in the hundreds rather than thousands of contributors, has produced a body of knowledge that comprises over four thousand peer-reviewed academic articles. With this volume of research, Disaster Information Management has grown into a sizable domain of study and reached a critical mass of output, which justifies topical and directional analyses that in turn help identify potential gaps in scholarly attention. Furthermore, such analyses of the body of knowledge allow for determining major publication venues as well as identifying contributors including the underlying scholarly networks. With this paper a first comprehensive account of the evolution of topical directions inside the study domain is established. Also, leading contributors and influencers are named, and their networks and publication venues are identified. Over the past two decades the study domain of Disaster Information Management is found to be steadily growing in publication numbers as well as in research avenues.