Analysis of the development of research and technical application is a critical basis for the identification and evaluation for suitable soil and water conservation ecological technology（SWCET） in China. Among instruments for analyzing the development of research and technical application, bibliometric statistics and visualization tools such as Cite Space have been widely applied. To analyze the domestic development of SWCET, we applied Cite Space to the CNKI（China National Knowledge Infrastructure） database on Chinese research literature（from Jan 1985 to Mar 2017） and patents（Jan 2002 to Feb 2017）. The circulation of research after 2002 and quantity of patents after 2010 increased rapidly. Research institutions, people and interests were dispersed, a strong center of research has not been formed and cooperation among research institutions is weak. The number of patented inventions in western regions of China suffering serious soil erosion is far lower than that in eastern regions such as Jiangsu, Beijing, Shandong and Guangdong. Vegetation restoration, ecological slope protection and protective cultivation are relative hotspots according to technical measures： the Loess Plateau, stony desertification（area） and dry-hot valley according to research area, and expressway, side slope and sloping cropland according to application area. Research hotspots mainly appeared several years after the number of published papers increased in 2002. In the past five years, only stony desertification has emerged as a focus. We argue that further studies on the identification and evaluation of SWCET should be focused on certain technical measures, regions and areas.
