Research Topic Identification and Trend Forecasting of Blockchain in the Construction Industry: Based on LDA-ARIMA Combined Method

Driven by the urgent need for industrial transformation and emerging technologies, the construction engineering market is rapidly evolving toward intelligent building systems. This study employs latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) methodology to analyze 474 blockchain-related research abstracts from Web of Science and Scopus databases, identifying eight key research topics: (1) industry adoption and implementation challenges; (2) smart contracts and payment mechanisms; (3) emerging technologies and digital transformation; (4) construction supply chain integration and optimization; (5) building modeling and technology integration; (6) modular integrated construction (MIC) applications; (7) project data and security management; and (8) construction industry sustainability and circular economy (CE). Using the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, the study forecasts trends for the top three research topics over the next 36 months. The results indicate strong positive growth trajectories for industry adoption and implementation challenges (Topic 1) and project data and security management (Topic 7), while emerging technologies and digital transformation (Topic 3) demonstrate sustained growth. This study offers a thorough examination of the present landscape and emerging research trends of blockchain in construction, and establishes an overall framework to comprehensively summarize its research and application in the construction industry. The results provide actionable insights for both practitioners and researchers, facilitating a deeper understanding of blockchain’s evolution and implementation prospects, and supporting the advancement of innovation within the industry.