Digital Innovation for People-Centered Design, Planning and Management of Climate-Resilient Cities
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 13 May 2026 | Viewed by 1146
Special Issue Editors
Interests: smart, circular, digital, inclusive, and sustainable urban development and planning; key performance indicator (KPI) impact assessments; socio-economic impacts of nature-based solutions (NBSs); energy and green community engagement; ESG frameworks; multi-criteria spatial decision support systems (MC-SDSSs); participatory approaches and design thinking; scenario analysis for future communities, cities, and built environments
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: climate adaptation and mitigation; sustainable development; spatial impact assessment; inclusive and sustainable transitions; systems theory applications in urban development; spatial decision
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce a new Special Issue that aims to mainstream contributions investigating how digital innovation can be a factor in inclusive urban planning.
The transition towards sustainable, climate-resilient, and adaptive cities demands transformative urban governance approaches that prioritize inclusivity, equity, and collaboration, and digital tools—ranging from participatory platforms and visualization dashboards to AI-powered decision support systems—are increasingly playing a central role in enabling such transitions. Such tools and approaches can support the co-creation of knowledge, enhance citizen participation in planning and implementation processes, and promote socially just and equitable urban development.
This Special Issue aims to explore how digital innovation can be effectively leveraged to support the co-creation of climate-resilient urban planning and we seek contributions that investigate how digital innovation may contribute to inclusive planning and governance models, empower communities, and promote equity and justice in climate adaptation strategies.
Interdisciplinary research combining urban planning, digital innovation, the social sciences, environmental studies, and public policy is particularly encouraged, and we welcome theoretical, empirical, methodological, and practice-based papers that contribute to a deeper understanding of how digital solutions are reshaping participation and equity in sustainable urban transformations.
Topics of interest may include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Digital solutions for participatory urban planning and design;
- Tools supporting the co-creation and co-implementation of climate adaptation strategies;
- AI- and data-driven models that support inclusive climate decision-making;
- Serious games, AR/VR, and immersive environments for stakeholder engagement;
- Digital twins and urban dashboards for climate adaptation and resilience;
- Equity and inclusion in digital citizen engagement processes;
- The evaluation of the socio-spatial impacts of digital participation tools;
- Case studies on digital co-creation in urban sustainability transitions;
- Methodologies for assessing the impact of digital tools on social equity.
Dr. Sara Torabi Moghadam
Dr. Jhon Ricardo Escorcia Hernández
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- digital participation
- co-creation
- climate resilience
- urban adaptation
- citizen engagement
- social equity
- sustainable urban transitions
- digital tools
- inclusive planning
- participatory governance
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