The British Academy-funded Anticipating Futures: Forecasting and Climate Preparedness for Co-located Hazards in India (ANTICIPATE) project has improved the understanding of how marginalised communities in semi-arid Western India cope with climate extremes.
Originally focused on drought-prone regions adapting to floods, the research uncovered a deeper issue: rising climate volatility, including heatwaves, and its impact on livelihoods, gender roles, migration, and resilience.
Key project objectives:
- Examining different understandings of co-located hazards
- Exploring how different actors approach forecasting in the context of co-located hazards
- Understanding preparedness through anticipatory practices
One of its most innovative methods was a visual tracking method to document changes in seasonal patterns. Building on analysis from climate science work, which analysed changes in rainfall patterns over the last decade, researchers then used photo elicitation with community members to explore lived experiences to extremes. Women and adolescents played a central role, discussing the images and reflecting on how uncertainty affected daily life, food security, and social relations. This process revealed that adaptive capacities are weakening, particularly in villages with little external support.
One key achievement was the relationship built with a remote village that had had little previous contact with non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Initially sceptical, over two years, the villagers gradually came to trust the research team, leading to discussions on Indigenous weather forecasting methods and climate preparedness. The findings had a strong impact, especially in the local school, where the headteacher kept the research materials to teach students about climate change and shared ‘This material will help explain climate change to secondary students. This will be useful for passing on traditional forecasting knowledge to future generations. You made us realise that the seasons are changing, and we are preparing in our ways.’
Research from the ANTICIPATE project has also influenced global climate adaptation discussions. A paper on gender and climate was published in the Gender & Development in March 2025, one being developed on seasonality tracking and another paper on living between droughts and floods was submitted Geoforum. The project also contributed to a policy roundtable organised by the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, involving policymakers, NGOs, and researchers in climate preparedness discussions which also resulted in a publication.
The project has directly informed a new initiative, Reimagining Preparedness under Climate Extremes (RELIABLE), led through a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. RELIABLE extends ANTICIPATE’s insights on uncertainty to explore how institutional actors across South Asia and the UK prepare for climate extremes such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves.
Unlike standard approaches that rely heavily on forecasting models, RELIABLE focuses on the practical knowledge and skills of mid-level policy actors, such as disaster managers, water engineers, and control room operators, who make critical decisions in real time. These actors, often embedded in systems over many years, adapt quickly to uncertainty by drawing on tacit experience, social relationships, and affective (emotional) skills. These are vital for building preparedness and resilience but have largely remained underexplored in standard approaches. The project draws on a cross-disciplinary research design and innovative methodology combining social sciences with arts and design and storyline approaches.
Integrating ethnographic, participatory, and creative approaches with atmospheric modelling, ANTICIPATE was an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration between academics, disaster specialists and local artists across the UK and India. RELIABLE is building on these lessons to reframe how preparedness can be understood, not only as prediction and control, but as an ongoing, adaptive practice that acknowledges uncertainty as part of everyday governance.
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