Synergies of Geospatial and Digital Technologies for Sustainable Rural Development: A Data‐Driven Analysis of Topics and Novelty Assessment

ABSTRACT

The adoption of geospatial and digital technologies, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Building Information Modelling (BIM), Digital Twins, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), is increasingly recognised as key enablers of sustainable development. Despite their growing relevance, research on digital technologies applied in rural contexts has developed in a fragmented manner, lacking a systematic understanding of its trajectories. This research addresses this gap by conducting a corpus‐based review of digital technologies in the rural framework for the period 2000–2025. An initial dataset of 4123 records retrieved from Scopus and Web of Science via a PRISMA‐based search was systematically screened to yield a final corpus of 363 publications. The analysis combines bibliometric mapping, transformer‐based semantic topic modelling using BERT embeddings, and a multidimensional novelty assessment integrating Novelty Sentence Embedding (NSE), Novelty Concept Distance (NCD) and a Composite Indicator (NSECD). The results reveal three phases in the evolution of the field: GIS centrality (2000–2009), methodological diversification (2010–2019) and AI‐driven convergence (2020–2025). Three research domains emerge—Land (61%), Building (13%) and Digital Technology (26%). Novelty analysis indicates that semantic divergence and conceptual recombination represent independent pathways of innovation, with highly novel contributions frequently emerging from cross‐domain integration. The proposed analytical pipeline offers a replicable framework for mapping research trajectories in interdisciplinary technological fields that support the resilience, efficiency and sustainability of rural landscapes and built environments.