Crop and farming-system diversification strategies for coastal agricultural resilience: a systematic review through DPSIR lens

Coastal social-ecological systems worldwide face regionally differentiated impacts of global environmental change, with agriculture-dependent livelihoods among the most exposed. In coastal Bangladesh, farmers confront intensifying salinity intrusion, waterlogging and extreme weather events. Crop and farming-system diversification is used as an adaptation strategy, yet systematic evidence on its types, drivers and outcomes in these contexts remains limited. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this systematic review identified diversification strategies in coastal Bangladesh and applied the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework to assess system-level drivers and outcomes. A total of 95 studies were synthesised (89 from database searches of Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar; 6 from manual reference chaining). Five groups of recurrent strategies were identified: (i) integrated agriculture–aquaculture and farm-enterprise diversification, (ii) aquaculture-driven land-use change and farming-system diversification, (iii) stress-tolerant crop adaptation, (iv) community-based agroecological diversification and (v) cropping-pattern and management adjustments. Climate variability and salinity intrusion were the most frequently reported driver and pressure, respectively, characterising diversification as primarily defensive rather than market-driven adaptation. While diversification was reported to enhance income stability and risk management, benefits appeared unevenly distributed, with access mediated by capital constraints. Evidence remains limited regarding locally led adaptation dynamics, scalability and unintended consequences. Strengthening coastal resilience may benefit from context-specific, systems-oriented approaches integrating farmer innovation, appropriate technologies, institutional support and equitable access. This DPSIR-based synthesis should offer transferable insights for climate-vulnerable coastal social-ecological systems globally.