Ethical and governance frontiers in big data for climate resilience

Climate extremes (such as droughts, floods, wildfires and storms) and disasters (such as pandemics, natural catastrophes and technological errors) are becoming increasingly common due to ethical, governance and accelerated climate change. Exposure to any disaster can be damaging to human life and corporate development. As a result, there is growing interest in research linking ethical governance of big data to climate resilience. This study adopts a structured conceptual synthesis of literature published between 2000 and 2025 to develop an integrative ethical-governance framework for big-data-driven climate resilience. Based on analysis of recent climate resilience articles, this paper explores an interdisciplinary perspective embedded within the climate resilience framework with key technological and analytical innovations (big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), mobile sensing and digital citizen science platforms), ethical considerations (privacy, equity, data sovereignty, indigenous knowledge and misinformation) and governance mechanisms (institutional frameworks, participatory decision-making, accountability and policy integration). By examining big data, ethical dimensions and governance frontiers in the context of climate resilience, this paper advances an integrative framework that links technological innovation with ethical accountability and adaptive governance. The proposed climate resilience framework is conceptual in nature. It emphasises how data systems, when ethically designed and institutionally governed, can enhance transparency, equity and anticipatory capacity in climate decision-making. Because this paper is conceptual, the proposed framework should be interpreted as a theoretically informed foundation that requires empirical validation through future case studies, comparative analyses and stakeholder-based research. It also delineates critical research gaps at the intersection of data ethics, policy design and resilience outcomes, thereby offering a structured agenda for future scholarship and practical implementation.