How Responsive Are Indian Geographers to the Sustainable Development Goals? Evidence from Scopus-Indexed Research

In the modern world, the most ambitious blueprint for our collective future is a set of seventeen global targets known as the Sustainable Development Goals. Adopted by nations around the globe, these goals act as a checklist for solving the planet's most pressing problems, from eradicating poverty and hunger to ensuring clean water, protecting forests, and building fair cities. Because these challenges are deeply rooted in where people live, how they use the land, and how resources are distributed across space, the field of geography is uniquely positioned to help. Geographers do not just study maps; they analyze the complex relationships between human societies and the physical environment, making them essential for understanding how to achieve these goals. The question facing the scientific community is whether researchers in this field are actually focusing their work on these global targets, and if so, which parts of the agenda are receiving the most attention and which are being overlooked.

A team of researchers set out to answer this question by looking at the work produced by geographers in India over a decade. They gathered nearly 19,000 English-language journal articles published between 2015 and 2025, a period that covers the entire lifespan of the global goals so far. Using specialized software to scan the summaries of these papers, they identified which articles were directly related to the sustainable development targets. They found that about one-third of all the research in this field was indeed focused on these goals, a clear sign that the discipline has embraced the global agenda. However, the study revealed a distinct pattern in how this attention was distributed. The research was heavily concentrated on goals that could be measured by looking at the land and the environment. The most studied targets were those related to life on land, such as protecting forests and ecosystems, and sustainable cities, which involves managing urban growth and planning. Other popular topics included health, ending poverty, and ensuring food security. These areas align perfectly with the traditional strengths of geography, which often involves using satellite imagery and computer mapping to track changes in forests, cities, and water resources.

In contrast, the study found that other critical goals received far less attention. Topics such as gender equality, reducing inequalities between different groups of people, and building strong institutions for governance were explored much less frequently. The researchers noted that while the field is excellent at mapping physical changes and environmental risks, it has been slower to engage with the social and political dimensions of sustainability. This imbalance suggests that while Indian geographers are making significant contributions to understanding the environmental side of the equation, there is a gap in addressing the human and institutional challenges that are just as vital to the success of the global plan. The data showed that the most influential and widely read papers were those dealing with land management, climate-smart agriculture, and smart city technologies, reinforcing the idea that the discipline's current strength lies in its ability to measure and model the physical world.

The researchers also looked at who is doing the work and how they are collaborating. They discovered that Indian geographers are working closely with scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia, creating a strong network of international knowledge exchange. However, collaboration with neighboring countries in South Asia was less common, even though these regions face similar challenges with rapid urbanization and climate change. The study also highlighted a shift in the tools being used. While traditional methods like remote sensing and geographic information systems remain dominant, there is a rapid rise in the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze data. This technological evolution is helping researchers process vast amounts of information about land surface temperatures and urban growth, but it may also be steering the field toward problems that are easier to measure with computers, potentially leaving the harder, less quantifiable social issues behind.

Ultimately, the paper paints a picture of a discipline that is deeply committed to the global sustainability agenda but is still finding its balance. Indian geographers are successfully using their spatial perspective to tackle environmental and urban challenges, providing the data and maps needed to manage resources and plan for the future. Yet, the study suggests that to fully support the global goals, the field needs to broaden its scope. By turning more of its analytical power toward issues of fairness, gender, and governance, geography could offer a more complete solution to the complex problems facing the world. The findings indicate that while the foundation is strong, the next step for researchers is to ensure that the map of sustainable development includes not just the land and the cities, but also the people and the systems that hold them together.