CAN WE MEASURE A REMOTE SENSING SCIENCE? BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE, 1975-2005

Remote sensing science is a rapidly growing field of Earth sciences. Since emergence and to present day, an extensive literature has evolved which traces the wide application of remote sensing in human activities. According to the ISI Web of Science in the 1975-2005 time span more then 20,000 papers were published on remote sensing. The number of papers grew exponentially with doubling period of about 6 years. Notwithstanding all specialized proceedings, there is a lot more remote sensing papers published in a vast list of source titles (up to 350 proceedings). Only 25% of retrieved papers are published in 10 proceedings which ISI assigns to subject category of remote sensing. In 2005 all these proceedings published 1291 articles and received cca 24,000 citations. Average impact factor of the proceedings is equal to 1.181 and average cited half-life is 7.1. It means that an average paper in remote sensing proceedings is cited more then once per year and half of citations the paper receive within the next 7 years after publication. The time line of remote sensing periodicals issued in 1927-1995 shows an exponential growth with doubling period about 15 years. After 1995 there is a prominent deviation from the exponential curve which shows the demand saturation for specialized proceedings. The features revealed are discussed in terms of dynamics and impact of remote sensing in current Earth sciences development.