With an increasing number of scientific achievements published, it is particularly important to conduct literature-based knowledge discovery and data mining. Flood, as one of the most destructive natural disasters, has been the subject of numerous scientific publications. On January 1, 2018, we conducted literature data collection and processing on flood research and categorized the retrieved paper records into Whole SCI Dataset (WS) and High-Citation SCI Dataset (HCS). These data sets can serve as basic data for bibliometric analysis to identify the status of global flood research during 1990 – 2017. Our study shows that while the Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most productive institution during this period, the United States was the most productive country. Besides, our keyword analysis reveals the potential popular issues and future trends of flood research.