Mapping of Research Output by the Sri Lankan Researchers on Shrimp Culture: Based on the Scopus Database

Abstract

The Shrimp farming sector in Sri Lanka is one of the developing, most lucrative and high foreign exchange earning food production industry that caters to the protein needs of the people. Currently various coastal areas of Sri Lanka are proposed to set up Shrimp farms with a view to enhancing the Sri Lankan economy. The aim of this study is to analyze the research output by the Sri Lankan researchers on Shrimp culture, during 2009 - 2019. This study analyzes the number of publications published by Sri Lankan authors, highly cited publications, most productive author, research institutions involved in this research, sources used by the authors, collaborating institutions and countries and the research trend in shrimp culture. The search terms “shrimp farming” and “shrimp aqua culture” were used as keywords, title and abstract search to find the publications in Scopus database. There were 3851 available globally from 2009 to 2019. Among them, Sri Lankan authors have published 22 publications and those publications were extracted and examined. The results of the study revealed that, high number of publications was published in the year 2017. The most productive authors were M.P. Kumara (2), M.N. Munasinghe (2), P. Abeynayake (2), E.K. Galappaththi (2) and J.M.P.K. Jayasinghe (2). Among them, M.P. Kumara had received 32 citations for his two publications. The highest number of citations (24) was received by the article authored by J. Baunazel with the collaboration of 6 authors including two Sri Lankan authors and published in the Journals of Ocean and Coastal Management. University of Peradeniya (5), University of Wayamba (3) and Ocean University Sri Lanka (2) were the leading Sri Lankan institutions involved in Shrimp culture related research. Collaborated research papers with other countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada received more citations. Collaboration with leading foreign research institutions like Edinburgh Naiper University (24) and Ecometrica (24) in United Kingdom were notable. Sri Lankan authors published different aspects of Shrimp culture such as environmental impact, shrimp disease, and seafood production. Sri Lanka has contributed 0.57 percent to the global shrimp culture research. The result of this study facilitated in understanding the research trend on Shrimp culture in Sri Lanka. Further, this helps to increase the socio-economic level of Sri Lanka by identifying the scope for future research in shrimp culture and demand for increased research.