Recently, the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China officially released the "World Journal Clout Index (WJCI) Report" (2020 Science and Technology Edition) (hereinafter referred to as the "WJCI Report"). "Advances in Earth Science", which is sponsored by the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Department of Earth Sciences of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, has been included in it.

      The "WJCI Report" is jointly developed by the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, China Academic Journals (CD Edition) Electronic Publishing House Co., Ltd., the Library of Tsinghua University, Wanfang Data Co., Ltd., and the China Association of Scientific and Technical Journals of Universities. Its aim is to establish a brand-new journal evaluation system. The "WJCI Report" determines the proportion of source journals included from various countries from four dimensions: R&D investment in various countries around the world, scientific research paper output, the number of scientific research personnel, and the scale and level of journals. It has set the goal of selecting 14,287 excellent journals with the most regional, disciplinary, and industrial representativeness from more than 63,000 active scientific and technical academic journals globally as source journals. This report has constructed a comprehensive evaluation indicator - the "World Journal Clout Index" by adopting the "World Academic Journal Clout Index (WAJCI)" based on citation data and the "Web Impact Index (WI)" based on web usage data.

      The WJCI Report includes 1,426 Chinese scientific and technical journals, with an average WJCI index of 1.185. All the included journals are regarded as excellent journals with regional and disciplinary representativeness. Among them, 172 journals are included in the WJCI-Q1 zone; 345 journals are included in the Q2 zone.