Trends in environmental management through the lens of the Australasian Journal of Environmental Management

Abstract

Articles published in the Australasian Journal of Environmental Management were reviewed to assess the focus and scope of topics they addressed, methods used, authorship patterns, and how these may reflect consistency in the issues researched and debated in Australasia from 1994 to December 2013. The analysis revealed trends towards multiple authors; an Australian dominance and national perspective, but with increasing regional and local focus; declining emphasis on natural environmental issues with commensurate increase in emphasis on rural issues; increase in empirical studies using mixed methods; and a shift from informing management practice towards informing national and regional policy. The disciplines of Environmental Science, Economics, Policy and Political Science, Biological Science, Law and Commerce underpin, in declining order of emphasis, considerations relevant to environmental management as reported in this journal. Increasing attention is being given to Human Society, the Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences and the sub-disciplines of Climatology and Indigenous Cultural Studies. The suite of articles published is strongly underpinned by some core discipline areas aligned with the human dimensions of decision-making, and is responsive to emerging issues. The breadth of disciplinary focus reflects the interdependency and complexity of environmental management. In summary, the journal appears to be addressing the need to provide rigorous multi-disciplinary research informing environmental policy and management in its region.

Keywords:

• meta-analysis
• disciplines
• focus
• emphasis
• journal papers
• text mining

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the assistance of Ms Bonnie Killip who undertook most of the classification of articles used as the basis for this article, and the referees who provided useful comments on the manuscript.

Notes

1. ‘Descriptive’ is a default categorisation where the research approach is not clearly one of the other categories, but rather discusses environmental management issues drawing from a range of information sources. Literature reviews clearly fall into this category.

2. A special issue is in preparation.

3. Law journals with an impact factor increased from 131 in 2000 to 248 in 2010 and 280 in 2012.