Geographical impact of scientific journals ( doi : 10 . 4136 /

One important quality measure of a scientific journal is its scope, not just the scientific coverage, but also the geographical impact. In fact, the primary classification system, used to evaluate and grade scientific journals' quality in Brazil, known as Qualis CAPES, when classifying a journal attributes a quality grade A, B or C, and also adds an indication of the journal ́s geographical impact: Local, National or International. This classification system is used by several other institutions, especially by research funding agencies, for instance, CNPq, whose thematic committees use Qualis CAPES classification to quantify the researchers' and Research Groups' productivity. This article discusses several possibilities for geographical impact evaluation and presents the mechanism used by Ambiente e Água – An Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Science (Ambi-Água) to monitor the extent of its spatial impact.