Unveiling two decades of environmental policy research trends: topic modeling-based machine learning insights

Purpose The study aims to analyze and report on key research trends within the environmental policy (EPOL) discipline, focusing on identifying important topic areas and highlighting the theoretical concepts and analysis methods that policy scholars should prioritize. By exploring these aspects, the study seeks to enhance policy effectiveness in addressing environmental challenges. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a content analytics approach, employing the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model to identify research hotspots. The LDA model analyzes research trends across 2 decades (2000–2019), based on a dataset of 33,683 abstracts from 30 peer-reviewed journals focused on EPOL research. This methodology enables a comprehensive examination of emerging topics within the discipline. Findings The analysis identifies 40 significant research topics within the EPOL literature. Key findings highlight the increasing focus on niche areas such as climate change resilience, food security, renewable energy, urban spatial planning and ecosystem services. These trends reflect a shift towards more specialized and targeted policy issues within the broader field of EPOL. Originality/value This study provides a novel contribution to EPOL scholarship by offering a quantitative, data-driven analysis of research trends over the past 2 decades. The use of the LDA model for profiling research hotspots introduces a new perspective on how to systematically track and synthesize emerging EPOL topics. The findings have the potential to inform future research and policy development by fostering a more integrative understanding of the field.