Abstract: Heavy metal pollution in river has received increasing attention around the world with the development of industry and agriculture. In the present paper, papers on heavy metal pollution in rivers indexed by the Web of Science from 1979 to 2016 are analyzed. Results indicate that the number of articles on heavy metal pollution in river is increasing rapidly. Articles in Spain, United States of America, and France are of strong comprehensive impact. Although the number of articles and total citations of Chinese articles are the highest all over the world, the average citation per article is lower. Grande, an author from University of Huelva in Spain is very competent in research on this field. Environmental Pollution is the most important journal in the research field of heavy metal pollution in river. Sediment in river is the hottest topic. Mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic, zinc, and copper are the major heavy metal pollutants in river. The assessment of heavy metal pollution based on biological monitoring has also become a focus recently.

Key words: heavy metal pollution in river, bibliometrics, literature analysis, biological monitoring, web of science