DIGITAL CLIMATE FUTURES – A decolonial and justice perspective on digitalised climate change adaptation was a 3-year research project, completed in March 2026, based at Lancaster University and Bath Spa University. The project was funded the Leverhulme Trust.
The project investigated how the digital has been entering climate adaptation – a theme that is surprisingly underexplored and under-theorised.
To fill this gap, the project developed a novel theoretically-driven and empirically grounded research programme that for the first time combines a justice angle on ‘smart’ climate adaptation with decolonial approaches to the digital.
Read more about our research programme and team
A visual explainer tracing the emergence of smart climate adaptation Dr. Shakthi Nataraj, who illustrates as The Artful Anthropologist.
Smart adaptation or data colonialism? In this peer-reviewed article, published in Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, we interrogate the role of digital technologies in climate adaptation, making the case for a critical engagement with the ever-expanding territory of ‘smart adaptation’, and identifying htree interrelated modalities through which ‘smart adaptation’ operates: depoliticization, financialization and experimentatio. Read the article →
Dr Vidya Pancholi shares findings from our fieldwork in Bihar in two recent blog posts: mapping the dense landscape of digital agriculture initiatives across the state, and documenting the remarkable forms of resistance to digital coloniality emerging from local communities.
Drawing on our research findings, we have produced a toolkit for academics and practitioners working on digital climate adaptation. Read more and Download the toolkit here