A systematic knowledge pedigree analysis on green governance.

As the importance of green governance (GG) for achieving sustainable development is generally recognized, research in this field is booming and has interdisciplinary features. Given of that, a systematic knowledge pedigree analysis is conducted based on 2342 papers related to GG from Web of Science to recognize the research status and better navigate the future research activities. First, the prolific authors, high-cited literature, geographical distribution and cooperation are carried out by using bibliometric tools to recognize the current research status of GG field. Then, the knowledge structure of GG is explained through high-frequency keyword analysis and keywords co-occurrence analysis. Next, the time zone map and strong citation bursts analysis are employed to unearth the knowledge evolution path of GG and reveal the research frontiers related to GG. Based on the above analysis, it is found that green economy, green revolution and justice are the current research hotspots of GG. Additionally, the topics of urban GG, management & performance of GG and the multi-agent to coordinately participate in the GG process are the research focuses. The research evolution of GG has experienced three periods. Through further analysis, three unique features of GG research are refined, i.e., governance agents, governance tools and governance objectives. And, a GG analysis framework contained the features of "agent-tool-objective" is constructed. Finally, four future research opportunities in this field are pointed out. This research integrates the results related to GG scattered in the literature system, which help to enrich the theoretical research of GG and guide the development of GG practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]