Data from a literature synthesis (1966-2024) and bibliometric analysis on macrophyte and nature-based solutions

This dataset accompanies a paper submitted to L&O Letters entitled “Aquatic macrophytes as nature-based solutions: challenges and opportunities across inland and coastal waters” Abstract: Macrophytes are foundation species whose use as nature-based solution (NbS) in aquatic ecosystems can help mitigate biodiversity loss and attenuate the impacts of climate change. The discrepancy in research and application of macrophytes as NbS across inland and marine coastal ecosystems is an opportunity to expand the concept and learn from different approaches. We report on an initiative uniting marine and freshwater scientists that compared knowledge on macrophytes as NbS across realms, identified advances and gaps in their use, and synthesized challenges and opportunities for application. We conducted a bibliometric analysis, and an expert participatory exercise around recent review papers. We reveal that most NbS papers are marine-focused with distinct topics emphasized across realms, highlighting complementarity of expertise and potential extension to inland waters. We provide recommendations to encourage researchers and stakeholders to embrace the value of macrophytes across a broad range of contexts for a more sustainable future. The dataset includes the data output from Web of Science, the number of papers per year and realms, the keyword dataset used in the bibliometric analysis, and the recent reviews with the data extracted by authors and analyzed in the paper.