Identifying the trends and mega-trends of the blue economy using the method of systematic literature review and expert workshop

Economic progress with minimal damage to the environment is one of the important values of this era. One of the new fields that have been made more exploitable with the development of new technologies is the sea and the ocean. The deep seas and the far oceans are a field whose economic use has been provided more than in the past. In order to focus knowledge in this field, the general title of blue economy or ocean economy has been formed and this title, as a special keyword, has been decided upon by researchers, policy makers and decision makers. In this research, both in order to introduce this topic and to gain initial knowledge of the dimensions of this field in different fields, we sought to know its trends and megatrends in a future-oriented way. With the method of systematic literature review, the specialized domain of this field was examined in 6 main areas in order to extract its trends and technologies, and then, using thematic analysis and expert workshop, coding of the initial trends was done in order to reach its megatrends. Finally, in 6 main areas of blue economy, 168 microtrends and technologies were extracted, which were categorized under 9 megatrends of flotation, smarttization, destruction, greeification, profitablization, habitablization, novelization, extraction, and conflictualization.