Environmental education (EE) involves teaching about the environment, ecological principles, environmental issues and the impact of human activities on the natural world. EE is inherently multidisciplinary, often incorporating inquiry-based and student-centered approaches. Environmental literacy is often seen as the intended outcome of EE, encompassing knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to make informed decisions and act responsibly for the environment. Environmental competencies are a set of skills and abilities developed through EE that influence environmental literacy, namely critical thinking, problem solving and the ability to apply sustainable practices.

The aim of our study was to investigate research trends in the field of environmental education, particularly in relation to the literacies and competencies involved, in order to provide a direction for future research. A bibliometric approach with science mapping was used. The Scopus database was searched in titles, abstracts and keywords for the terms “environmental education”, “environmental literacy” and “environmental competencies”, but also for related/subordinate topics that replace the term environmental, such as “ecological” and “sustainable”. The results were limited to the years up to 2024, journal articles and conference papers and yielded just over 19,000 documents. After the pre-processing phase, the data was analysed using Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny in terms of productivity and influence of authors and sources, as well as most cited documents. Co-word analysis was applied to combined author and indexed keywords in VOSviewer, identifying key research subtopics and recent trends. The co-author analysis also examined author and country collaboration.

Our results show that annual scientific production is increasing, especially in recent years. 10% of all articles were published in two journals: Sustainability and Environmental Education Research. The latter received the most citations. The most cited papers deal with environmental behavior, climate change awareness, human-nature interaction, public engagement and policy. While the keyword “environmental education” was used in 39% of the documents, “sustainability education” appeared in 10%. In comparison, “environmental literacy” was found in 1.7% of the documents and “sustainability literacy” in 0.7%. The most important topics discovered with scientific mapping were environmental management (e.g. protection, biodiversity, conservation, ecotourism; in relation to the public/stakeholders), sustainability (ecology, teaching and research, engineering education), environmental education (climate change and education, science education, attitudes, awareness, behavior, knowledge, teacher education, primary and secondary education), education (medical and related education, awareness, waste management/recycling, experiments and controlled studies, population groups), higher education (educational development, literacy, academic research, interdisciplinarity, geography education). Emerging research areas according to newer keywords are sustainable development goals, climate action, machine learning/AI, digitalization, Covid-19, and inclusive education. There has also been a recent increase in literature reviews and bibliometric analyses in this area, reflecting the rapid growth of research.

Keywords: Environmental education, environmental literacy, environmental competencies, sustainability, bibliometric analysis.