Sustainable infrastructure: A review and a research agenda.
This paper proposes a taxonomy of themes and a research agenda on sustainable infrastructure, with a focus on sustainable buildings (SB) and green infrastructure (GI). The citation databases of Web of Science formed the basis for a novel strategic thematic analysis of co-citation and co-occurrence of keywords with a longitudinal identification of themes during the last two decades (from 1995 to 2015) of an emerging and ever growing research area. SI is a multidisciplinary endeavour, including a diversified array of disciplines as general engineering, environmental ecology, construction, architecture, urban planning, and geography. This paper traces that the number of publications in SI is growing exponentially since 2003. Over 80% of total citations are concentrated in less than 10% of papers spread over a large number of journals. Most publications originate from the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The main research streams in SI are green infrastructure, sustainable buildings, and assessment methods. Emerging and prevailing research themes include methodological issues of cost-effectiveness, project management and assessment tools. Substantive issues complement the research agenda of emerging themes in the areas of integration of human, economic and corporate social responsibility values in environmental sustainability, urban landscape and sustainable drainage systems, interdisciplinary research in green material, integrated policy research in urbanization, agriculture and nature conservation, and extensions of Green Building (GB) and GI to cities of developing countries.
Industrial Engineering Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 225 Sala: 950L, 22453-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Electronic address: mt@puc-rio.br.
Antônio Márcio Tavares
AMT
Thomé
Production Engineering School, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Avenida Pasteur, 458, 22290-240, Urca, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Electronic address: paulaceryno@hotmail.com.
Paula Santos
PS
Ceryno
Production Engineering School, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Avenida Pasteur, 458, 22290-240, Urca, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Electronic address: annibal.scavarda@unirio.br.
Annibal
A
Scavarda
The Faculty of Engineering and Science, Department of Development and Planning, Center for Design, Innovation and Sustainable Transitions, Aalborg University, Skibbrogade 5, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark. Electronic address: ar@plan.aau.dk.
Arne
A
Remmen
D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D006801:Humans; D010934:Planning Techniques; D012106:Research; D014507:Urbanization
Green infrastructure; Research agenda; Sustainable building; Sustainable infrastructure; Systematic literature review; Taxonomy