Digital Innovation for People-Centered Design, Planning and Management of Climate-Resilient Cities

Dr. Sara Torabi Moghadam and Dr. Jhon Ricardo Escorcia Hernández are guest editors of  Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050) for the Special Issue: Digital Innovation for People-Centered Design, Planning and Management of Climate-Resilient Cities

Special Issue Information:

The new Special Issue 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.

• 13 May 2026

• Special Issue: Digital Innovation for People-Centered Design, Planning and Management of Climate-Resilient Cities