Using bibliometrics based on the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases, the development trends, frontier fields and status of collaborative soil quality research over the past 30 years were analyzed in terms of the volume, country and institution of publication, as well as citation frequency of papers and keywords.

It was found that the number of relevant articles in the field of time series increased steadily overall, and that the United States, China, India, Brazil and Canada had the highest output of international collaborative research publications. Co-occurrence network analysis showed that long-term fertilization, tillage and crop rotation, as well as measures such as soil nutrients, structure, biology, community structure, function, monitoring and evaluation were still leading topics in soil quality research. In recent years, domestic research has gradually moved toward the soil quality improvement model based on soil biology, but is still somewhat behind the level of current international research. [Prospect] The mechanism of soil biology in the process of soil quality improvement and the quantification of soil ecosystem service function will become two leading research topics in the near future. The combination of information technology, biotechnology and big data analysis technology to perfect dynamic monitoring and evaluation of soil quality will also attract more attention for soil quality improvement and soil health in the future.