Unravelling the State of the Art of Blockchain Development for Improved Infrastructure Delivery in the Built Environment: A Bibliometric Review

Information management is critical to the smooth operation of infrastructure delivery. It is the process of gathering, storing, distributing, archiving, and deleting/destroying data. Information and data management are critical to decision-making toward achieving improved, resilient, and responsive infrastructure delivery. While innovative tools abound for managing information in the built sector, barriers such as technical challenges, expertise needed, and cost of procurement inhibit the adoption of these technologies. In contrast, blockchain offers opportunities for accessibility, lighter and faster transaction speed, and secured data processing. However, research in this area is limited and slowly emerging. Therefore, this study adopts a bibliometric review to avail current progress, critical discussions, and vital strategies to advance the adoption of Blockchain development in the construction industry. Blockchain has emerged as important to built environment innovation discourses with energy management, payment processing, documentation, and asset lifecycle management opportunities. This study is therefore important in improving extant studies and availing future directions. This paper uses bibliometric analysis to examine blockchain as a tool for infrastructure delivery in the built environment. Empirical data from Scopus was analysed to establish the publication and citation pattern, specifically publications published between 2011 and 2021. This also identifies research trends, common gaps, and best practices among researchers who use Vosviewer. The most influential authors, institutions, journals, countries, and cooperation networks are then identified. This study presents the relevance of blockchain in the built environment and its movement, adoption, and adaptation, which further enables the spark of innovative ideas to realize and comprehend the current and future technological transformation in infrastructure delivery.