Climate change adaptation in the port industry: A complex of lingering research gaps and uncertainties

• Published in: Transport policy 2020-09, Vol.95, p.10-29
• Main Authors: Panahi, Roozbeh, Ng, Adolf K.Y., Pang, Jiayi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Climate change adaptation; Co-occurrence network; Collaboration network; Geographic coverage; Port industry; Semantics analysis
• ISSN: 0967-070X; 1879-310X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.05.010

Despite the rise in global attention to port managers’ actions on climate change, they still face considerable challenges in reaching collective agreements on proactive policies and hands-on actions. Considering the influence of port as the middle-man of global trade and development, this study undertakes semantic, co-authorship, and geographic coverage analyses of major articles on port climate change adaptation to shed light on the evolution of research over last fifteen years. With semantic analyses, we extract material words and expressions of identified articles, based on their title and keywords, and discuss when they have been taken into consideration and how they have been jointly studied. Also, co-authorship analysis shows the formation and expansion of research communities. Finally, geographic coverage of research and geographic distribution of researchers explain to what extent this subject has been explored and knowledge has been disseminated around the globe. We hereby suggest that future research should claim adaptation leadership by a quick paradigm shift, to support timely decisions. It is time to move ahead, focusing more on adaptation actions and approaches to bridge adaptation gaps. •Research should take a leap from the inception stage to the implementation stage.•Enjoying the network-thinking outlook, research should support balanced horizontal and vertical preparation.•Knowoledgde incubation and mobilization should be strengthened through diversification.