Contact
Biography
I completed my PhD, entitled 'The consequences of past climate change for state formation and security in southern Africa', at the University of Sheffield in 2015. After this, I joined the Department of History at Utrecht University to work on the European Research Council-funded project 'Coordinating for life: success and failure of Western European societies in coping with rural hazards and disasters, 1300-1800'. From 2018-25 I lectured in Geography at the University of Lincoln, where I also served as Director of Teaching and Learning (Geography) from 2022-24. During this time, I also held visiting fellow positions at the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State and at the Brussels Institute of Advanced Studies. I joined the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham as a Future Leaders Fellow in April 2025.
My research sits at the interface of environmental history, historical climatology, and climate change adaptation. It focuses on social engagement with climate, food, and hazards in the past, particularly in southern and eastern Africa, and explores how this knowledge can inform our understanding of how societies respond to contemporary environmental challenges. These themes are at the heart of my UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, which explores the origins, mechanisms, and ongoing forms of climate coloniality in southern Africa.
To this end, I am also serving as editor of the 'Learning from the Past' section of the Oxford Intersections: Climate Adaptation project from Oxford University Press. The section aims to bring together a dynamic, interdisciplinary body of work that asks what can we learn from history, from societies that faced climatic challenges in the past, especially those that adjusted and thrived?
Expertise Summary
Environmental history
Historical climatology
Climate change adaptation
Disaster history
African history
Professional Affiliations
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
Member of the British Institute in Eastern Africa
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Research Summary
My research falls into three main themes, broadly within environmental history and historical geography:
1. Climate vulnerability and adaptation
A key part of my research focuses on vulnerability and adaptation to climatic change and extremes past and present. My entry point into this space was debates around climate variability and the "collapse" of African state structures before colonial times, on which I have published critical perspectives in Environment and History. I have drawn on early colonial written records, oral histories and palaeoclimate evidence to assess shifting vulnerabilities and responses to past climate variability in southeast Africa, research on which has been published in WIREs Climate Change and Global and Planetary Change. In each of these endeavours I have been interested in how a historical focus can inform climate change adaptation in the present. These questions have formed the focus of articles in Global Environmental Change and my recent 'Environmental Historical Geographies' piece in Geography Compass, and underpin my current UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.
'During the corn and plenty season, Manganjaland, before the famine 1862-63', by Dr Charles Meller. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, UMCA A1 (I) A, 9.
2. Historical climatology
My work explores reconstruction of past weather and climate variability using documentary sources from c. 1500-1900 CE. I have previously used meteorological information in ships' logbooks to reconstruct nineteenth century precipitation variability at Cape Town and in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which was published in The Holocene. I have used Portuguese, Dutch, British and French written records to produce a multi-centennial chronology of extreme events in southeast Africa during the 'Little Ice Age' in southeast Africa, which has been published in Climatic Change. Currently, I am working with colleagues to reconstruct rainfall variability for northern, central and southern Mozambique and tropical cyclone variability over the Mozambique Channel, both focusing on the nineteenth century. I am also interested in the recovery of early instrumental weather observations, particularly in eastern Africa, with ongoing projects on Ilha de Moçambique (1854-1900) and Zanzibar (1838-43).
3. Food histories and futures
A third important strand of my research considers the history and future of food. Empirically, I have mapped historical evidence on food systems and foodways across southern and eastern Africa since 1500 CE, the results of which are available in an open-access dataset. This has allowed me to uncover deep perspectives on debates relevant for current food security, including diversification and specialisation as livelihood strategies. My paper in Nature Food discusses these findings. I have furthered this research as co-investigator of a British Academy ODA Interdisciplinary Research Project, in which I have led a work package on the histories of underutilised indigenous crops in two regions of Kenya. These histories have grounded co-production workshops on the futures of underutilised crops, building on the ideas set out in a recent co-authored Nature Sustainability article.
A full list of my academic publications is available on my Google Scholar, Researchgate.net and ORCID pages.
I have been an investigator on the following externally funded projects:
2024-2028: UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Constructing Climate Coloniality: Histories, Knowledges and Materialities of Climate Adaptation in Southern Africa, PI, £1,722,903.
2024-2026: British ODA Interdisciplinary Research Project, Histories and Futures of Under-Utilised Crops Reimagined', Co-I £300,000.
2022-2024: British Academy-Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grant, Climate History of Nineteenth Century Mozambique, PI, £8,184.
PhD supervison
Abbie Mathewson, PhD candidate (University of Nottingham, 2024-), Thesis title: 'Gendering climate coloniality: Histories and futures of women's climate vulnerability in Kenya and Zimbabwe' (co-supervised with Meghan Alexander and Lilian Korir)
Completed PhD students
Soseala Tinilau, PhD (University of Lincoln, 2024), Thesis title: 'Community education and its impact on environmental stewardship in Tuvalu' (co-supervised with Andrew Kythreotis, Sarah Hemstock and Theresa Mercer)
Selected Publications
ADAMSON, G.C.D., HANNAFORD, M.J. and ROHLAND, E.J., 2018. Re-thinking the present: The role of a historical focus in climate change adaptation research Global Environmental Change. 48, 195-205 DE MÛELENAERE, N., DIJKMAN, J., HANNAFORD, M., LIPPER, L., NORBERT-MUNNS, R. P. and UDDIN, A. M. N., 2025. The case for history in planning future food systems transformations Nature Sustainability. HANNAFORD, M. J., 2024. Environmental Historical Geographies Geography Compass. 18(12), e70013