Beyond the outfall: a systems thinking review of industrial water pollution impacts on agricultural systems

The SIRF diagram shows a shift from toxic degradation toward resilience through source segregation, ecological firewalls, algorithmic governance, and safe certification. This review synthesizes emerging evidence on how industrial water pollution is transforming agricultural systems and food safety in rapidly industrializing regions. A PRISMA-guided protocol was applied to identify relevant studies in Scopus and ScienceDirect, published between 2016 and 2025. Studies reporting soil, water, crop, and human health outcomes under industrial effluent exposure were subjected to a structured qualitative synthesis and interpreted through a systems-thinking lens. The literature shows that industrial effluents can temporarily sustain or enhance crop production while driving progressive soil and water degradation, heavy metal accumulation in edible tissues, and elevated non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic health risks. Analysis reveals a set of reinforcing feedback loops linking legacy contamination, wastewater-dependent irrigation, weak monitoring and governance feedbacks, and narrowly framed mitigation measures. Technological, nature-based, and policy interventions, though often effective in isolation, are rarely configured to disrupt these loops. In response, a Systems-Integrated Resilience Framework (SIRF) is proposed, coupling source segregation, ecological firewalls, real-time algorithmic governance, and safe-produce market instruments to reconfigure industrial–agricultural interfaces towards circular, resilience-oriented pathways.