Abstract: The Yarlung Zangbo River is one of the highest altitude rivers in the world; its runoff changes are crucial to regional ecosystem, environment, and water security. This study aims to reveal the hotspots and trends in the research of this river basin and explores its runoff evolution patterns through bibliometric analysis. We examine 2,365 English papers and 939 Chinese journal papers based on data from the Web of Science Core Collection and the Peking University Core database, combined with analysis tools such as CiteSpace and the bibliometrix package in R. The analysis highlights the key research areas－such as climate change, ecological environment, and hydrological process－and identifies India, China, and the United States as the primary contributors in this field. Using the Mann-Kendall and Yamamoto methods, we examine abrupt changes in the runoff data across different sub-basins, revealing significant variations in runoff evolution and its abrupt shifts in certain years. The combined results of bibliometric analysis and runoff data analysis further demonstrate the profound impact of climate change on the basin’s hydrological dynamics, providing a deep insight for water resource management and ecological protection in the region.

Key words: Yarlung Zangbo River, bibliometric analysis, runoff evolution, sub-basin, research hotspots