Mapping Existing Modelling Approaches to Maritime Decarbonisation Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation

Abstract

While for a long time reluctant to take action over the climate emergency at hand, the maritime shipping industry is now addressing the pressing need to decarbonise. Within this context, numerous modelling approaches and associated tools have emerged, with the aim of either reducing shipping emissions directly or facilitating decision-making around the sector’s transition. This paper explores the use of topic modelling—specifically Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)—as a means of identifying the trends in these existing modelling approaches to maritime decarbonisation. The use of topic modelling is proposed as a means of overcoming challenges inherent to both the chosen field of study and wider shipping industry, namely significant heterogeneity and fragmentation. LDA is shown to provide an effective means of mapping this particular research field, with four topics identified as principal thematic trends. The results obtained may serve to ascertain where future research in sustainable shipping can most effectively intervene.