An Interdisciplinary Systematic Review on Sustainability in Tunneling—Bibliometrics, Challenges, and Solutions

Marco Huymajer, Matthias Woegerbauer, Leopold Winkler, Alexandra Mazak-Huemer and Hubert Biedermann
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Marco Huymajer: Chair of Subsurface Engineering, Digital Transformation in Tunnelling, Montanuniversität Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria
Matthias Woegerbauer: Chair of Economic and Business Management, Montanuniversität Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria
Leopold Winkler: Institute of Interdisciplinary Construction Process Management, TU Wien, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Alexandra Mazak-Huemer: Chair of Subsurface Engineering, Digital Transformation in Tunnelling, Montanuniversität Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria
Hubert Biedermann: Chair of Economic and Business Management, Montanuniversität Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 4, 1-33

Abstract: Sustainability is defined by current research as an interdisciplinary field comprising environmental, social, and economic aspects. This paper presents a systematic literature review following the PRISMA guidelines investigating how authors currently view sustainability issues in the specific context of tunneling. Thereby, we introduce a new methodology for reviewing sustainability aspects in an interdisciplinary way, where key bibliographic metrics are derived from the metadata of the reviewed literature. Regarding the content of the articles, we cluster sustainability aspects into specific topics and discuss challenges and solutions. In addition, we examine the role of digital technologies applied in sustainable tunneling. Our results show that there is a lack of interdisciplinary studies and that the current research does not represent all three dimensions of sustainability equally. The current research focuses on assessing the status quo instead of presenting specific solutions. Finally, we see great potential to further leverage digital tools to enable sustainable tunneling.

Keywords: sustainability; tunneling; tunnel construction; green building; life-cycle; environmental, economic and social; systematic literature review; multidisciplinarity; digital technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:4:p:2275-:d:751622

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