Explaining Urban Recovery after Tropical Cyclones: A Bibliometric-Systematic Review of Research Trends, Drivers, and Future Directions

Tropical cyclones increasingly threaten coastal cities, yet why recovery outcomes diverge across places remain poorly synthesized. Here we examine the determinants of post-cyclone urban recovery through a bibliometric-systematic review of 117 peer-reviewed empirical studies published between 2005 and 2025. Combining bibliometric mapping with full-text qualitative synthesis, we assess research trends, recovery drivers, and remaining knowledge gaps. The corpus has grown in visibility and methodological diversity, with increasing use of high-resolution geospatial, mobility and computational approaches to trace recovery across space and time. The synthesis shows that recovery trajectories emerge from interactions between hazard-impact conditions and five capacity-side dimensions: social equity, economic resources, infrastructure vulnerability, institutional capacity and community adaptability. However, the evidence remains geographically concentrated and dominated by single-event designs, fragmented recovery measurement and limited causal inference. We therefore identify three priorities for future research: cross-event and cross-regional comparison, integrated multi-source monitoring, and causal and nonlinear analysis of recovery mechanisms. By linking research trends with a structured framework of recovery determinants, this review advances understanding of why post-cyclone urban recovery diverges across places, while informing more adaptive and equitable resilience planning in cyclone-prone cities.