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ABSTRACT Marine and coastal systems are experiencing intensifying climate, biodiversity, pollution and resource‐governance pressures that require policy frameworks capable of aligning ecosystem integrity with sustainable coastal development. Although marine governance, circular economy (CE) and sustainable development goal (SDG) agendas are increasingly discussed together, the literature remains fragmented across policy, pollution, conservation and coastal‐development domains. This study conducts a bibliometric science‐mapping review, complemented by critical thematic synthesis, to examine how CE and SDG framings have evolved within marine policy research. Using 1426 peer‐reviewed articles indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (1990–2024; retrieved March 2024), we combine performance analysis with keyword co‐occurrence, cluster and overlay visualisations using VOSviewer and CiteSpace. The temporal interpretation distinguishes three phases: (i) antecedent marine policy and coastal‐management research before 2010; (ii) a 2010–2014 transition in which circularity, blue‐economy and resilience language gained visibility and (iii) the post‐2015 period shaped by the formal adoption of the 2030 Agenda, SDG 14 and mainstream CE policy agendas. The findings identify four interconnected thematic clusters: integrated marine management and resilience; anthropogenic pressures and risk; marine pollution and CE‐oriented responses; and biodiversity conservation and restoration. The review shows that CE and SDG framings are increasingly used to support upstream prevention, policy coherence and participatory governance, but it also highlights persistent gaps in implementation capacity, equity, measurement consistency and Global South representation. The study contributes an evidence‐based and conceptually bounded map of the field and translates bibliometric patterns into a policy‐relevant agenda for SDG‐aligned marine governance and CE implementation in coastal systems.
Woon Leong Lin (Sun,) studied this question.