Abstract

The Batticaloa Lagoon in Eastern Province is Sri Lanka's one of the largest brackish water bodies. A bibliometric study of publications on Batticaloa Lagoon provides key insights into diverse research approaches and critical knowledge gaps. This study explored two scholarly databases and a search engine, namely Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar to find published literature on Batticaloa Lagoon. The search was conducted in January 2025 using the keyword "Batticaloa Lagoon" as the search query yielded 16 records in Scopus, 15 in Web of Science, and 547 in Google Scholar. Preliminary screening identified 180 documents directly relevant to the search query. Among those 180 publications, approximately 43% were journal articles, 28% were from conference proceedings and,12% were theses and dissertations. The highest number of documents were published in year 2017 which accounts for 13. The relationship between age of the articles, and the number of articles indicated increase in research activity. The highest contribution of 36% was from single authors, followed by 28% from two-author publications. Authors with 10 or more publications on Batticaloa Lagoon were affiliated to Eastern University, Sri Lanka, South Eastern University of Sri Lanka and University of Peradeniya. The relative growth rate was notably higher during 1997 (0.241), 2012 (0.183) and 2005 (0.157), suggesting increased number of publications during those periods. Tropical Agricultural Research, Journal of Science EUSL, and AGRIEAST were the three journals to include most articles on Batticaloa Lagoon. A book on lagoons of Sri Lanka receiving 94 citations recorded the highest number of citations per year. The distribution of keywords indicates that the studies related to traditional ecological knowledge, cultural, religious and educational values, spiritual values, sense of place, or health benefits are limited.