Domestic and international research on river and lake health in the past thirty-five years

River and lake ecosystems are crucial for global biodiversity, flood control, and water purification. In recent years, research on river and lake health has garnered increasing attention. This paper uses bibliometric tools, such as VOSviewer, to construct knowledge maps and analyze key indicators, including co-citation analysis, keyword burst detection, and author network analysis. This study provides a comprehensive review of the literature on river and lake health over the past thirty-five years, identifying key scholars, journals, and countries, and analyzing current research trends. Additionally, centrality and density metrics are calculated to assess the academic network structure and key influences within the field. The paper highlights China’s significant role in this area and outlines both domestic and international indicator systems for assessing river and lake health.Additionally, the paper reviews commonly used assessment methods, discusses their strengths and weaknesses, identifies issues in current research, and suggests future research directions.