Marinas and sustainability: Directions for future research

Highlights: • It is important the particularity of each marina such as its geographical location, its infrastructure and the ecosystem. • The use of Author Keywords and Keywords Plus for this study shows that there are research trends that are closely linked. • The main risk associated with recreational boating has to do with the management of discharges from the boats themselves. • The analysis of keywords shows that there is no mention of the term sustainability. Marinas have ceased to be ports dedicated exclusively to recreational boating and nautical sports. Nowadays, marinas offer a variety of services that complement the tourist offering of its locality in addition to auxiliary activities that arise from its main activity. There are considerable economic and social resources generated by these types of facilities that benefit their localities, but they can also have negative effects such as compromising the sustainability of the environment. The objective of this article is to examine the terms related to changes in the ecosystem derived from marinas through the Keywords Plus and the Author Keywords extracted from the WoS database and obtain results that explain how several themes have evolved and how these concepts relate to each other and to other variables. In this way, it will be possible to critically examine the selection of terms that appear in scientific documents. The results show that pollution, antifouling paints, and invasive species are the terms of greatest concern and on which particular emphasis should be placed for future lines of research.