Shibi Nandan has a special interest in the agrarian transformation of the Kaveri delta in Tamil Nadu, in the long duree. His fieldwork based studies tries to understand the consequences of engineering interventions in the canal irrigated coastal deltaic areas and the emerging regimes of climate adaptation. He has also been developing a long historical approach of spatial transformation of the delta from medieval inscriptions, colonial records and contemporary state documents. He is contributing to the ethnographies of measures in rice and water in the delta regions.