Systems-of-Systems for Environmental Sustainability: A Systematic Mapping Study

TL;DR

This systematic mapping study reviews how Systems-of-Systems contribute to environmental sustainability, highlighting application domains, challenges, and future research directions in areas like smart cities and energy management.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of existing research on SoS for environmental sustainability, identifying gaps and proposing future research directions.

Findings

Most studies focus on Smart Cities and Smart Grids.

Challenges include interoperability, scalability, and data governance.

Less explored areas are sustainable agriculture and wildfire prevention.

Abstract

Environmental sustainability in Systems-of-Systems (SoS) is an emerging field that seeks to integrate technological solutions to promote the efficient management of natural resources. While systematic reviews address sustainability in the context of Smart Cities (a category of SoS), a systematic study synthesizing the existing knowledge on environmental sustainability applied to SoS in general does not exist. Although literature includes other types of sustainability, such as financial and social, this study focuses on environmental sustainability, analyzing how SoS contribute to sustainable practices such as carbon emission reduction, energy efficiency, and biodiversity conservation. We conducted a Systematic Mapping Study to identify the application domains of SoS in sustainability, the challenges faced, and research opportunities. We planned and executed a research protocol including an automated search over four scientific databases. Of 926 studies retrieved, we selected, analyzed, and reported the results of 39 relevant studies. Our findings reveal that most studies focus on Smart Cities and Smart Grids, while applications such as sustainable agriculture and wildfire prevention are less explored. We identified challenges such as system interoperability, scalability, and data governance. Finally, we propose future research directions for SoS and environmental sustainability.