Science mapping for recent research regarding urban underground infrastructure

The presented research conducted a bibliometric analysis regarding academic publications, especially journal publications, in the area of urban underground infrastructure (UI) systems (which include sewer pipes, drinking water pipes, cables, tunnels, etc.). In total, 547 journal papers published from 2002 to July 2022 (around 20 years period) were retrieved from Scopus using the proposed data collection method. Bibliometric analysis was conducted to extract and map the hidden information from retrieved papers. As a result, networks regarding co-citation, co-authorship, and keywords co-occurrence were generated to visualise and analyse the knowledge domain, patterns, and relationships. The eight most investigated topics in the UI research are identified and discussed, which provides an overview of the research history and focuses. Further, five potential research directions are suggested for researchers in the UI research area. The main contribution of this research is on revealing the knowledge domain of UI research in a quantitative manner as well as identifying the possible research directions.