Trends in marine pollution mitigation technologies: Scientometric analysis of published literature (1990-2022)

Marine pollution presents a pressing environmental issue in the oceanic realm. To examine the identification, detection, and mitigation technologies employed for marine pollution, a chronological review and analysis were conducted using a systematic search of 90,893 peer-reviewed Scopus-indexed journal articles on the SCOPUS database. From 1990 to 2022, research on marine pollution encompassed a wide range of topics including heavy metal pollution, oil spills, microplastics, and eutrophication. Detection technologies such as image processing, biomonitoring, spectroscopy, and microscopy emerged as prominent technologies, while mitigation strategies revolved around physical, chemical, and biological methods. In order to enhance the effectiveness of marine pollution mitigation, emerging technologies such as cloud-native platforms, decision intelligence, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) should be employed. This review highlights the importance of interdisciplinary involvement and the need to reinforce scientific areas to prevent future marine disasters and pollution, such as the recent incident with the X-Press Pearl.