Science mapping approach to assisting the review of construction and demolition waste management research published between 2009 and 2018

Abstract

Sustainable treatments of construction and demolition (C&D) wastes have become an increasingly urgent social, environmental, and economic issue worldwide. Based on a filter of 370 articles related to C&D waste management, this review-based study adopted a science mapping approach to evaluating the recent decade's C&D waste management research. Through a three-step workflow consisting of bibliometric literature search, scientometric analysis, and qualitative discussion, this study identified the most influential journals, scholars, articles, and countries that have been active and influential in the C&D waste management research since 2009. Keyword analysis revealed the emerging research topics, such as BIM, prefabricated construction, Big Data, and Circular Economy. The follow-up discussion summarized the mainstream research areas (e.g., qualification of waste generation), discussed research gaps (e.g., integration of BIM and Big Data into C&D waste management), and proposed the framework for near-future research, such as a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of C&D waste diversion, human factors, and design and planning for waste diversion. By providing the big picture of the latest research in C&D waste management since 2009, the paper serves as a multidisciplinary guide for practitioners and researchers to link current research areas into future trends.

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“…Scientometric review with descriptive and visual illustration is described as one of the most adopted methods of evaluating and assessing research trends by researchers, academics, institutions, countries, and journals. As adopted in this study, it helps to understand the structure (cluster), research areas and trends in carbon emission better than [53,54] and other studies.…”

A Systematic Literature Review of Green and Sustainable Logistics: Bibliometric Analysis, Research Trend and Knowledge Taxonomy

“…This review-based study conducted a systematic investigation on the academic development of global G&SL research with the aids of science mapping. Science mapping is a quantitative analysis approach that uses mathematical statistics and visualization techniques to study bibliographic networks (e.g., academics, institutions, themes, keywords, and journals) in a specific field [28]. This approach has been widely applied in many academic fields, such as sustainable transportation [29], environment science [30], city logistics [31] and waste management [32] and can directly synthesize salient findings from the existing knowledge system.…”

“…For a detailed operation manual of bibliographical experiments using science mapping approach, readers are advised to refer Jin et al [28] and Hu et al [31].…”