Mapping coastal and marine research in South Africa: A bibliometric analysis highlighting trends and future directions

The coastal and marine landscape within national and international space is of significance for human systems, sustainable (economic) development, global changes, and pollution prevention. South Africa occupies a geostrategic position due to its vast maritime trade, extensive and well-endowed coastline, being a continental shelf, having territorial waters, and several exclusive economic zones. Significant research has been done in the coastal and marine space of the country, especially in marine protected areas, oceanography, marine biology, fisheries and aquaculture. As such, this study explores the emerging thematic areas in South Africa’s coastal and marine studies teasing out research gaps with the view of encouraging more collaboration and research work in such areas. The paper utilises a bibliometric analysis that is aided by the VOSviewer software analysis. The key findings are that common areas of coastal and marine research include natural sciences and marine biology. On the other end, gaps emerged concerning research on ocean economy, ocean literacy, Sustainable Development Goal 14, the newly crafted discourses on global governance on plastics pollution, and the United Nations Ocean Decade. The study is significant in that it broadens the scope of coastal and marine research in South Africa and contribute towards the attainment of the Ocean Phakisa, blue economy, 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and Ocean Decade perspectives. • Bibliometric analysis of marine and coastal research in South Africa. • The analysis shows that marine and coastal research in South Africa aligns with global trends. • Areas requiring further research include the social sciences, arts, humanities and ocean literacy. • Emerging trends include co-creation of knowldge among stakeholders.