Scientific mapping of policy and governance dimensions in technological disaster risk mitigation: a bibliometric analysis

This bibliometric analysis examines research trends, key contributors, and thematic developments within a focused subset of disaster risk mitigation literature, policy and governance-oriented studies addressing technological and human-induced disaster risks (2014–2024). Using Scopus, we analyzed 54 open-access, English-language journal articles retrieved through a policy/governance–technological hazard search strategy. Bibliometrix/Biblioshiny and VOSviewer were used to map publication growth, influential outlets and documents, co-authorship networks, and keyword co-occurrence. Results indicate a marked rise in publications after 2020, with Sustainability (Switzerland) as the most frequent outlet. China, Germany, and the United Kingdom are among the most productive contributors, supported by substantial international co-authorship. Thematic patterns are dominated by climate change, sustainability, and energy-transition governance, alongside discussions of technology-enabled mitigation (e.g. AI, big data analytics, and geospatial tools). Because the corpus is deliberately scoped, these findings should not be interpreted as representing the disaster risk mitigation field as a whole; hazard-specific engineering mitigation studies are under-represented in this dataset. Overall, the study provides a transparent baseline of how policy-oriented scholarship frames technological disaster risks and highlights collaboration and thematic gaps for future research.