---
title: "SDG 6 Clean water and sanitation: research papers"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) was addressed by 2,194 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,394), AI (358) and operations research (260). It is #16 of the 17 goals by papers from 2023 to 2025 (718)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/6-clean-water-and-sanitation
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/6-clean-water-and-sanitation.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) was addressed by 2,194 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,394), AI (358) and operations research (260). (as of 2026-10-31)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-10-31T17:45:59+09:00
window: 2026-10-02 to 2026-10-31
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation

Papers in the tracked journals on UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, Clean water and sanitation. OpenAlex assigns a paper to each UN Sustainable Development Goal that its classifier scores above 0.4 from the paper's text; a paper can belong to several goals or to none.

All 17 goals: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/sdgs.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation) was addressed by 2,194 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (1,394), AI (358) and operations research (260).
- It is #16 of the 17 goals by papers from 2023 to 2025 (718).
- 254 of them were published in 2025, against 189 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Beijing University of Technology (28), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (17) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (15).
- The journals publishing most of them were Utilities Policy (139), Expert Systems with Applications (112) and Land Use Policy (52).
- The most-cited of them is “The consequences of spatially differentiated water pollution regulation in China” (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2018), with 1,162 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 141 | 151 | 139 | 156 | 145 | 130 | 142 | 116 | 133 | 141 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 17 | 13 | 11 | 17 | 34 | 48 | 46 | 52 | 67 | 53 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 14 | 14 | 16 | 32 | 22 | 32 | 36 | 33 | 30 | 31 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 9 | 14 | 6 | 5 | 4 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 2 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| All categories | 189 | 189 | 178 | 222 | 220 | 236 | 244 | 220 | 254 | 242 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Utilities Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/utilities-policy.md) | 139 |
| 2 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 112 |
| 3 | [Land Use Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/land-use-policy.md) | 52 |
| 4 | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 44 |
| 5 | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 44 |
| 6 | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 38 |
| 7 | [Neural Computing and Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/neural-computing-and-applications.md) | 38 |
| 8 | [Socio-Economic Planning Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/socio-economic-planning-sciences.md) | 27 |
| 9 | [Environmental and Resource Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/environmental-and-resource-economics.md) | 26 |
| 10 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 24 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | Beijing University of Technology | 28 |
| 2 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 17 |
| 3 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 15 |
| 4 | Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement | 15 |
| 5 | Hohai University | 13 |
| 6 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 13 |
| 7 | Instituto Superior Técnico | 12 |
| 8 | University of Lisbon | 12 |
| 9 | World Bank | 12 |
| 10 | University of Pisa | 11 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 260 |
| 2 | United States | 192 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 63 |
| 4 | Italy | 61 |
| 5 | India | 59 |
| 6 | France | 46 |
| 7 | Spain | 44 |
| 8 | Brazil | 41 |
| 9 | Australia | 36 |
| 10 | Germany | 32 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | water scarcity | 59 |
| 2 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 53 |
| 3 | water utilities | 52 |
| 4 | water resources management | 41 |
| 5 | water pollution | 40 |
| 6 | water governance | 30 |
| 7 | climate change adaptation | 28 |
| 8 | household water use | 27 |
| 9 | water conservation | 27 |
| 10 | environmental regulation | 25 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,162 | 11.1 | [The consequences of spatially differentiated water pollution regulation in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.01.010) | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 2018-02-01 | Zhao Chen, Matthew E. Kahn, Yu Liu et al. |
| 2 | 320 | 2.7 | [Water Governance—An Historical Perspective on Current Debates](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2016.11.014) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2017-01-05 | Philip Woodhouse, Mike Müller |
| 3 | 292 | 5.6 | [Using artificial intelligence and data fusion for environmental monitoring: A review and future perspectives](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2022.06.003) | [Information Fusion](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-fusion.md) | 2022-06-25 | Yassine Himeur, Bhagawat Rimal, Abhishek Tiwary et al. |
| 4 | 291 | 3.0 | [Environmental regulation, emissions and productivity: Evidence from Chinese COD-emitting manufacturers](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2018.08.004) | [Journal of Environmental Economics and Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-environmental-economics-and-management.md) | 2018-08-29 | Chunhua Wang, Junjie Wu, Bing Zhang |
| 5 | 290 | 2.6 | [Are we in deep water? Water scarcity and its limits to economic growth](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.019) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-06-28 | Tiziano Distefano, Scott Kelly |
| 6 | 250 | 2.4 | [Sustainable planning of the energy-water-food nexus using decision making tools](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.11.037) | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 2017-12-21 | Niclas Bieber, Jen Ho Ker, Xiaonan Wang et al. |
| 7 | 246 | 4.3 | [Does public participation promote environmental efficiency? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of environmental information disclosure in China](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2022.105871) | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 2022-02-08 | Hua Zhang, Tiantian Xu, Chao Qing Feng |
| 8 | 234 | 2.6 | [Reconciling global aspirations and local realities: Challenges facing the Sustainable Development Goals for water and sanitation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.02.009) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2019-03-12 | Veronica Herrera |
| 9 | 234 | 2.6 | [Evaluating public participation impact on environmental protection and ecological efficiency in China: Evidence from PITI disclosure](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2019.03.010) | [China Economic Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/china-economic-review.md) | 2019-03-27 | Zhengge Tu, Tianyang Hu, Renjun Shen |
| 10 | 224 | 2.6 | [Review of drivers and barriers of water and sanitation policies for urban informal settlements in low-income and middle-income countries](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2019.100957) | [Utilities Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/utilities-policy.md) | 2019-08-27 | Sheela Selin Sinharoy, Rachel E. Pittluck, Thomas Clasen |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/6-clean-water-and-sanitation

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-sdgs-6-clean-water-and-sanitation,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/6-clean-water-and-sanitation}},
  urldate = {2026-10-31},
  note = {Journal Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).