Digital Technology Integration for Climate Resilience In Coastal and Island Local Governance of Developing Countries: a Systematic Literature Review
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
Local governments in developing countries face mounting challenges from climate variability, particularly in coastal and island territories where conventional service-delivery mechanisms struggle to keep pace with emerging environmental risks. Digital technologies—geospatial systems, IoT sensing, remote sensing, and analytics platforms—offer pathways for strengthening local administrative and environmental-management capacity. This systematic literature review examines how integrated digital technologies are deployed to support climate resilience in coastal and island settings relevant to local governance across developing and emerging economies. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, a Scopus search retrieved 577 records (2023–2025); after title/abstract screening, 144 records underwent full-text eligibility assessment, and 35 studies meeting transparent inclusion criteria (HIGH methodological quality, integration of at least two technology types, and an explicit coastal or island setting) were included in the final qualitative synthesis. Rather than pooling heterogeneous outcomes into a single effect size, this review applies narrative synthesis and structured vote-counting, which is appropriate given the diversity of study designs, technologies, and outcome measures. The synthesis shows that technology integration clusters around four recurring patterns—IoT/sensors with remote sensing, AI/ML with digital platforms, remote sensing/GIS with data analytics, and digital platforms with analytics. Coastal settings dominate (25 of 35 studies) over island settings (10 of 35), and adaptation is the most common resilience focus (19 studies). The review identifies recurring enablers (geospatial monitoring capability, multi-source data integration) and persistent barriers (digital inequality, fragmented institutional data, and limited local technical capacity). The evidence base is descriptive and heterogeneous; findings should be read as patterns and directions rather than as pooled quantitative effects.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The journal allow the authors to hold the copyright without restrictions and allow the authors to retain publishing rights without restrictions.
- Authors can enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) before and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.