AI and Digital Technology for Climate-Resilient Urban Planning

Dear Colleagues,

Cities around the world are confronting escalating climate risks, including rising temperatures, extreme weather events, flooding, and increasing pressures on critical infrastructure, and, as urban environments become more complex and climate-related challenges intensify, traditional planning approaches on their own are no longer sufficient. At the same time, rapid advances in AI and digital technologies are creating unprecedented opportunities to transform how cities anticipate, respond to, and plan for climate impacts. From predictive analytics and real-time monitoring to digital twins and autonomous systems, these innovations are reshaping the foundations of climate-resilient urban development. Yet, alongside their promise, significant concerns remain regarding equity, ethics, governance, and the uneven distribution of technological benefits. This Special Issue seeks to address these opportunities and tensions by assembling cutting-edge research that critically examines how AI and digital technologies can support more adaptive, inclusive, and sustainable urban futures.

The existing body of literature has made substantial progress in demonstrating the potential of AI and digital technologies in climate-resilient urban planning. Current studies show that AI significantly enhances analytics, prediction, and modelling of urban systems, while digital twins and AI-driven optimisation are improving energy systems and smart city infrastructure (Angelidou, 2017; Das, 2024; Kotecha, 2023; Mutambik, 2024). Researchers have also highlighted how the integration of IoT and AI enables real-time environmental monitoring, which is essential for adaptive climate responses (Angelidou, 2017; Das, 2024; Kotecha, 2023; Mutambik, 2024). Despite these advancements, however, the literature remains fragmented across the technological, planning, and social domains.

This Special Issue aims, therefore, to offer added value by integrating technological innovation with social dimensions—addressing social sustainability and equity; examining ethical concerns related to bias, privacy, and digital exclusion; and foregrounding participatory governance and public engagement. It also proposes to expand the geographic and socio-economic scope of existing research by highlighting under-researched contexts, including case studies from resource-constrained cities, as well as discussions of capacity building, infrastructure limitations, and socio-political challenges in data-driven climate planning. In addition, this Special Issue will link emerging technologies with long-term climate resilience by synthesising research on quantum computing for complex urban simulations, autonomous systems for climate-adaptive infrastructure (Soni & Taneja, 2025), and multi-agent AI systems for collaborative climate solutions—fields that remain underexplored yet hold significant potential for innovation.

Furthermore, by combining insights from current applications, social science critiques, and cutting-edge technological developments, the Special Issue seeks to develop a comprehensive future research agenda that identifies key gaps in equity, ethics, public participation, and governance; proposes integrated human-centric and technology-driven frameworks; and articulates a multi-stakeholder roadmap for resilient and inclusive urban futures. In so doing, it positions itself as a crucial bridge between present capabilities and future visions for AI-enabled climate resilience.

Focus

This Special Issue focuses on the transformative role played by artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies—including IoT, digital twins, advanced analytics, automation, and emerging computational tools—in shaping climate-resilient urban planning. It aims to examine how these technologies enhance city-level decision-making, climate adaptation, sustainability, and governance by enabling predictive modelling, real-time monitoring, scenario simulation, and participatory planning.

Scope

The Special Issue welcomes interdisciplinary contributions that explore both technological innovations and socio-institutional dimensions, and core thematic areas may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• AI-enabled predictive modelling for climate risk assessment, flood mapping, heat-island mitigation, and resource optimisation;
• Digital twins and IoT ecosystems for smart urban infrastructure, energy efficiency, transport systems, and environmental monitoring;
• Data governance, ethics, and equity in AI-driven urban planning, especially in relation to privacy, surveillance, and algorithmic bias;
• Global South perspectives on deploying AI and digital technologies under constraints of infrastructure, data availability, and socio-economic disparities;
• Citizen engagement, participatory platforms, and co-creation using digital tools to promote inclusive climate resilience;
• Emerging frontiers, such as quantum computing, autonomous urban systems, and large-scale multi-agent urban simulations.

Purpose

The Special Issue specifically aims to achieve the following:

• Synthesise cutting-edge research on how AI and digital technologies are redefining climate-resilient urban planning;
• Bridge technological and social perspectives by highlighting ethical, cultural, and equity implications of AI-enabled planning;
• Identify persistent gaps and future research agendas, particularly around inclusion, governance, and real-world implementation;
• Showcase global innovations, contrasting experiences from technologically advanced smart cities (e.g., Dubai or Singapore) with under-resourced urban regions in the Global South;
• Foster interdisciplinary collaboration between urban planners, data scientists, policymakers, sustainability scholars, and technology developers.

References

Angelidou, M. (2017). The Role of Smart City Characteristics in the Plans of Fifteen Cities. J. Urban Technol. 24, 3–28.

Das, D.K. (2024). Exploring the Symbiotic Relationship between Digital Transformation, Infrastructure, Service Delivery, and Governance for Smart Sustainable Cities. Smart Cities 2024, 7, 806–835.

Kotecha, P. (2023). Unlocking the Potential of AI in Smart Cities, The Increasing Connectivity of Cities Through IoT Devices Presents a Remarkable Opportunity; Financial Express; Spon Press: London, UK.

Mutambik, I. (2024). Culturally Informed Technology: Assessing Its Importance in the Transition to Smart Sustainable Cities. Sustainability 16, 4075.

Soni, D.K. & Taneja, A. (2025). Building Sustainable Urban Futures with AI and Digital Twins. In A. Taneja, A. Kumar, S.V. Limkar, M. Ouaissa and M. Ouaissa (Eds.). Driving Innovation through AI and Digital Twin for 6G Powered Sustainable Ultra Smart Cities, pp. 119–137. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781394411320.ch5

Dr. Dillip Kumar Das
Dr. Salvatore Antonio Biancardo
Guest Editors

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• artificial intelligence (AI)
• climate-resilient urban planning
• climate risk modelling
• digital technologies
• ethical and inclusive urban governance
• global south urbanism
• participatory governance
• smart and sustainable cities
• urban climate adaptation
• urban infrastructure resilience