Adoption of Climate-smart Agriculture Innovations in Drought-prone Regions: A Global Bibliometric Review (2016-2025)

The 21st century has seen rapid changes in global climate, and agriculture, being strongly dependent on local weather and natural resources, is thus one of the most affected sectors. The adoption of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) innovations is indispensable in promoting drought resilience, but their uptake appears inconsistent in the vulnerable regions. This paper aims to systematically characterise the global research landscape concerning the adoption of CSA for drought adaptation, based on available evidence. The bibliometric review of the adoption research in drought-prone areas (107 Scopus-indexed articles ranging from 2016 to 2025) is performed in this study. In this paper, we ask five research questions on publication trends, geographic and institutional contributions to the field of DCSR, and an overview of key themes and knowledge gaps. The findings tell a story of an annual increase in publications by 31.8%, with nearly half (48.6%) involving international collaboration. Good technical performance of the ICT tools is reported in drought-prone regions by institutes like ICAR-CRIDA (India), KNUST (Ghana), and CIAT (Colombia). Research clusters are related to: (1) barriers in socio-technical adoption, such as access to extension and credit; (2) intersections between society and environmental systems, for example, drought-food security linkages; and to a lesser extent (3) the geography of SSA-Asia focus that leaves little space for Latin America. Key challenges persist, including significant gaps in gender inclusion, policy integration, and market connectivity. The type of research that has the highest impact is often too removed from the immediate local context in which it will be applied, and suggests that knowledge systems need to be better embedded in regions. This paper contributes to policy and research by supporting community-led CSA practices, South-South learning networks, and national resilience assessments. An innovation ecosystem, globally informed but locally grounded, will be crucial to the diffusion of CSA amongst drought-vulnerable smallholders. This review concludes that for decision makers to scale up Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA), a locally rooted and globally connected innovation system is needed within which their constituents are encouraged.