Revisiting Port Decarbonization for Advancing a Sustainable Maritime Industry: Insights from Bibliometric Review

The maritime industry is crucial in mitigating global warming and advancing sustainable maritime development worldwide. As essential nodes in maritime supply chains and key energy hubs, ports must undergo decarbonization to support global sustainability efforts. Research on port decarbonization (PD) has gained increasing attention in recent years, with several reviews revisiting this topic. However, most existing studies have focused on specific aspects such as measures or policies rather than a holistic perspective. This study adopts a comprehensive approach by examining three key perspectives: PD measures, PD facilitation activities, and PD macro-environmental factors. By systematically analyzing 218 articles retrieved from the Scopus database through bibliometric and content analysis, this study identifies trends over time, geographic distribution, key journals, leading authors, prominent themes, research clusters, researched countries, and methodologies. Key findings highlight the following priorities: (i) broadening the focus to include various port types; (ii) more studies on ports in lower-middle-income economies; (iii) promoting cross regional and international research collaboration; (iv) studying alternative fuels and diversified PD measures through theoretical lenses, innovative, practical, and multifaceted perspectives, and within the context of green corridors and global and regional PD efforts; (v) identifying effective governance models, human resources strategies, infrastructure development, and collaboration mechanisms; and (vi) addressing the direct and indirect impacts of political, legal, and macro-environmental factors on PD.