Because water serves as the core element interlinking critical processes, such as food security, energy production, and ecological balance, its nexus with other resources should be comprehensively investigated to address global climate change and achieve sustainable development, particularly in arid and semiarid areas where chronic water scarcity amplifies cross-sector tradeoffs and exposure to climate variability. Despite the substantial amount of relevant research, a systematic review and bibliometric characterization of water-centered nexus (WCN) studies remain limited. This study bridges this gap by relying on bibliometric methods to analyze 1514 WCN publications (2008-2024), and a systematic thematic review is conducted to summarise progress and outline future directions. Results show a marked increase in WCN research over the past decade, with China and the U.S. as leading contributors. The research focus has transitioned from binary interactions to intricate multielement couplings, and methodologies have progressed from static assessments to dynamic optimization and scenario simulation. A significant theme is how climate change impacts water resources, threatening WCN stability and intensifying resource conflicts-prompting the use of multi-objective optimization and renewable energy technologies as mitigation pathways. Nonetheless, challenges persist, including a potential gap between rapidly advancing analytical frameworks and their translation into implementable governance and management actions, as well as limited practical applicability of proposed solutions. Given trends focusing on decarbonization, multiresource security, and sustainable utilization and considering the maturity but limited scale adaptability of existing methods, future directions should prioritize multi-scale techniques, adopt system resilience as a core criterion, maintain WCN within a safe and just operating space, and investigate nexus dynamics under telecoupling frameworks to facilitate global sustainable development.