Scientometric study of scientific literature on the estuaries of Ceará State

Abstract

Estuaries are one of most important coastal environmental system it has been a subject of study worldwide. Many researches have been done on estuarine dynamics, especially regarding the circulation and mixing process, in order to understand the principles of estuarine physical oceanography. However the knowledge on estuaries of Ceará state about hydrodynamics conditions has a significant unequal distribution of studies realized over different sectors of the Ceará coast. An inventory was realized to select the main publications available from estuaries of Ceará state inside physical oceanography area. Resulting in a total of 100 publications. These publications were classified as Grey and White literature and the type of literature is associated with low or high repercussion in the academic community. Results showed that 77% was classified as Grey literature and 23% White literature. 52% of studies were realized on estuaries located in east coast of Ceará state (sector 3), mainly in the Jaguaribe river by the great importance of this system, 22% in the west and extreme west coast (sector 1), 21% in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza (sector 2) and 5% are studies in more than one estuaries or sector of coast. There was a historical evolution of research in the estuaries of Ceará, with increase in the number of published studies and consequently a higher level of knowledge, mainly in the Jaguaribe River basin.