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ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE

Bamboo-based remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soils: A bibliometric visualization analysis

Qiao Wu1 ,  Saihong Ru2 ,  Xiaoyu Zheng2 ,  Ming Zeng2 ,  Maoqing Fan2 ,  Chengyou Sun3*
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1 Department of Pharmacy, Changsha Health Vocational College, Changsha, Hunan, China
2 Hunan Changsha Ecological Environment Monitoring Center, Changsha, China
3 Key Laboratory of National Forestry and Grassland Administration on Bamboo & Rattan, International Centre for Bamboo and Rattan, Beijing, China
AJWEP, 026270186 https://doi.org/10.36922/AJWEP026270186
Received: 2 July 2026 | Revised: 14 July 2026 | Accepted: 21 July 2026 | Published online: 12 August 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Bamboo and its rhizosphere microorganisms have attracted increasing research attention as an effective strategy for remediating heavy metal-contaminated soils. To map the development trajectory of this field and identify emerging priorities, this study used CiteSpace software to conduct a bibliometric visualization analysis of 210 relevant articles included in the Web of Science Core Collection from 2006 to 2025. The analysis covered annual publication trends, national and institutional collaboration networks, journal distribution, keyword co-occurrence, and cluster analysis. The results show that the development of this field can be divided into three stages: the nascent stage (2006–2012), the stable growth stage (2013–2019), and the rapid expansion stage (2020–2025). China is a major contributor in this field, accounting for 68.5% of the total publications, and maintains close collaborations with Pakistan and the United States. Zhejiang A&F University and Nanjing Forestry University are leading institutions in this field. Core research themes identified through keyword cluster analysis include phytoremediation, adsorption, bamboo species, and remediation efficiency. Notably, relatively few studies explicitly exploring the synergistic remediation of bamboo and microorganisms were found in the retrieved literature, indicating a significant research gap that should be prioritized in future work. This study provides a quantitative overview of bamboo-based heavy metal remediation research and proposes specific directions for mechanistic studies and field applications.

Keywords
Bamboo
Rhizosphere microbiome
Heavy metal pollution
Forest soil remediation
Bibliometrics
CiteSpace
Funding
We would like to thank the Scientific Research Project of the Hunan Provincial Department of Education (Grant No. 25B1178) for its support of this work.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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