Marine geohazards: Past, present, and future

Abstract

Marine geohazards related to geological features and processes in coastal and offshore environments can cause damage to health, environment, field installations, or loss of life and assets. Given increasing human activities in marine environments and population density on coasts, threats to society from marine geohazards are serious. However, the understanding and awareness of marine geohazards are still severely limited. This paper is aimed to highlight the advances and challenges on marine geohazards. Here, we present an overview of marine geohazard research to discuss the past, present, and future of marine geohazards based on bibliometric analysis and our understanding from an engineering geologist's perspective. This paper summarizes marine geohazard research in the development phase, geographic authorship distribution, related areas and disciplines, keywords, and subjects of focused interest. Trends of significance are synopsized from past events (over the last three decades), present processes, and future (foretelling) marine geohazards. Finally, we provide three recommendations from scientific research and safeguarding society perspectives: (1) intense involvement of engineering geologists, (2) integrated multidisciplinary marine geohazard research, and (3) collaborative efforts in marine geohazard mitigation. There is still a long way to go in protecting the public and infrastructure from marine geohazards.