Researches on ecological compensation of grassland resources based on CiteSpace bibliometrics: Characteristics, mechanisms, and policies

To clarify the research context and hot spot dynamics in the grassland ecological compensation field, this study analyzed the national distribution, international hot spots, domestic core authors distribution, institution distribution, and hot spot changes of grassland ecological compensation research at home and abroad based on Web of Science and China national knowledge infrastructure data by using CiteSpace bibliometric software. The results show that: 1) The United States is the country with the largest number of studies published in this field, followed by China, and the influence of international cooperation between the two countries is higher; 2) the international research mainly covers the design of compensation policy, the factors affecting the willingness to accept compensation, compensation standard estimation, the effectiveness of the policy, etc.; 3) domestic research focus areas are more prominent and do not form a solid core of the author network; 4) domestic research has experienced the theoretical exploration, policy practice and policy improvement stage; 5) besides the international focus of attention, the domestic research is also combined with the specific situation of pastoral areas in China. The results of this study help understand the development characteristics and frontier of grassland ecological compensation in China and provide a reference for further research in this field.