Velayutham Saravanan is engaged with economic and environmental history and his area of study pertaining to South India encompasses the late eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries besides the contemporary period. With interdisciplinary research interests, he has made significant contributions to the fields of economic history, environmental history, agrarian history, history of water conflicts, history of Scheduled Tribes problems, labour issues, and human rights, etc. His published works demonstrate a consistent multidisciplinary approach to understand the political economy of Tamil Nadu in particular and South India in general, with contemporary relevance. He has published books, Colonialism, Environment and Tribals in South India, 1792-1947 (2017) by Routledge,Environmental History and Tribals in Modern India (2018) by Palgrave Macmillan, Water and the Environmental History of Modern India (2020) by Bloomsbury and Environmental History of Modern India: Land, Population, Technology and Development (2022) by Bloomsbury. He has contributed a number of research articles both in national and international journals viz., Modern Asian Studies (MAS), South Asia Research (SAR), Environment and History (E&H), International Forestry Review (IFR), The International Journal of Human Rights (IJHR), Journal of Forest Economics (JFE), Indian Economic and Social History Review (IESHR), Indian Economic Journal (IEJ), Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics (IJAE), Indian Journal of Labour Economics (IJLE), Artha Vijnana, Review of Development and Change (RDC), Journal of Social and Economic Development (JSED), Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), Contemporary Perspectives: History and Sociology of South Asia, Asian Economic Review, Mainstream, Social Change, Social Action, Man and Development, Frontier, etc. Precisely, he has published more than 70 research articles both in national and international journals and presented more than 55 articles in various seminars conducted at national and international level both of historical and contemporary periods. He also delivered several invited lectures in different universities like University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, University of Pondicherry and Ambedkar University.

Currently, his research is focused on environmental issues of contemporary period.