Blockchain Applications in Smart Cities for Environmental Sustainability and Tourism Enhancement

The rapid advancement of smart city initiatives has necessitated the integration of emerging technologies such as Blockchain to enhance governance, service delivery, and sustainable development. Despite the growing adoption of Blockchain across various smart city domains such as transportation, healthcare, waste management, and digital identity systems, its application in environmental sustainability and tourism enhancement remains underexplored. This study aims to systematically investigate the role of Blockchain technology in supporting smart city components that promote environmental conservation and urban tourism. A systematic literature review was conducted using the PRISMA method involving 772 Scopus-indexed articles from five major databases including IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, Springer Link, Wiley Online Library, and Hindawi. After a rigorous screening process, 37 relevant articles were selected for detailed analysis. The findings reveal that while Blockchain has been extensively applied in smart services and infrastructure management, its integration in areas such as city park management and the protection of urban green zones for tourism purposes is limited. The study identifies a significant research gap concerning the use of Blockchain to optimize eco-tourism governance and regional financial planning. It concludes that Blockchain holds strong potential to enable decentralized, trans-parent, and efficient management of environmental and tourism assets within smart cities. The implications of this research pro-vide a foundational reference for policymakers, urban planners, and future researchers to expand the technological scope of smart tourism and urban ecosystem preservation. Future work is recommended to explore quantitative modeling and real-world pilot implementations in developing urban regions to validate the practical benefits identified in this review.