On December 24, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) officially released its 2024 High-Impact Academic Journal Series report. Based on citation data from the CNKI China Citation Database and download statistics from CNKI users, the China Scientometrics and Bibliometrics Research Center selected 166 journals out of 1,159 to be included in the series. The goal is to objectively reflect the academic influence of domestic journals, highlight their scholarly value, and enhance academic exchange and collaboration among research institutions. Environmental Law Review, published by the Research Institute of Environmental Law (RIEL) at Wuhan University—a Key Research Base for Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education—was selected and is notably the only journal in the field of environmental law included in the series.

The report categorizes journals into 18 disciplines, including general humanities and social sciences, Marxist theory, political science, law, and economics. The Journal Influence Index comprises six secondary indicators across two dimensions of citation frequency and download frequency. The six secondary indicators include total citations, average citations per article, number of highly cited papers, total downloads, average downloads per article, and number of highly downloaded papers.

Environmental Law Review was founded in 2018 and is now in its eleventh volume. It is led by Professor Qin Tianbao as Editor-in-Chief, with Professor Ke Jian serving as Executive Editor-in-Chief and Professor Chen Haisong as Deputy Editor-in-Chief. The journal features regular sections such as Hot Topics, Theoretical Frontiers, Practical Developments, International Trends, Excellent Graduate Theses, Newcomer Works, Conference Reviews, Case Analyses, and Book Reviews. Its mission is to promote the development of environmental law and support the advancement of the rule of law in this area. The journal places a strong emphasis on nurturing students' writing and editorial skills. Each year, it recruits doctoral students in environmental law to serve as editors. Under faculty guidance, these students play an active role in managing the journal’s editorial process.

Being selected in the 2024 High-Impact Academic Journal Series marks another major milestone for Environmental Law Review, following its inclusion as a full-text source journal in CNKI in 2020. This recognition reflects the institute’s growing influence and the continued development of its academic platform.