The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable development goals - A survey

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest challenge facing humanity after the 1918 Flu pandemic. The pandemic also poses a massive challenge to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Meeting this challenge requires a comprehensive investigation of the impact of the pandemic on sustainability. In this work, publications related to the impact of COVID-19 on sustainability in the Web of Science database were explored systematically by using bibliometrics techniques and meta-analysis approach. The results show the research scope is extensive, covering many subjects, whereas the research depth is not enough. Research in developed countries is dominant, although the pandemic poses more significant challenges to the sustainable development of developing countries than of developed countries. Developed countries are committed to studying education sustainability, while developing countries have shown greater attention to economic sustainability during the epidemic. The cluster analysis also shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought negative effects on 17 SDGs goals, whereas the pandemic may also bring opportunities to another 14 SDGs goals. At the end of the article, we put forward relevant suggestions for achieving sustainable development goals in the post-epidemic era.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; COVID-19; SDGs; Sustainability; Visualization.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

The step of the document process through CiteSpace and VOSViewer.

Fig. 2

The number of documents by discipline category.

Fig. 3

The cooperation network of the author.

Fig. 4

Country/Region coloring map by the number of documents.

Fig. 5

The cooperation network of country/region.

Fig. 6

The cooperation network of institutions.

Fig. 7

The cluster view of the cited-reference network.

Fig. 8

The cluster view of the keyword network.

Fig. A1

Evolution of the global airport network on four select dates before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (Sun et al., 2020).

Fig. A2

Rate of change of energy demand in 2020 and 2021 energy demand relative to 2019 levels(International Energy Agency, 2021).

Fig. A3

Global impact of COVID-19 on school closures(United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2020).

Fig. A4

Nitrogen dioxide concentrations were observed over major European cities(European Space Agency, 2020b).

Fig. A5

Human-made seismic noise showing in seismograph from the Royal Observatory of Belgium(Bressan, 2020).