Climate stressors and adaptation pathways in coffee agroecosystems under an agroforestry sustainability framework

Climate change is increasingly constraining the productivity, stability, and long-term viability of global coffee agroecosystems, underscoring the need for practical and scalable adaptation strategies that support sustainability amid accelerating environmental change. This study aims to present a systematic synthesis of research on climate-related stressors and adaptation pathways in coffee cultivation using a triangulated analytical framework that integrates co-word analysis, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and document-level thematic interpretation. Peer-reviewed literature published between 2000 and 2024 is analysed to map the structural evolution, intellectual foundations, and emerging research fronts of climate–coffee scholarship. The synthesis reveals a consolidating research core centred on shade-based agroforestry, microclimate regulation, climate suitability assessment, plant stress physiology, and farmer-oriented adaptation strategies. Across regions, rising temperatures, recurrent drought, rainfall variability, humidity fluctuations, and increasing atmospheric dryness consistently emerge as dominant stressors shaping photosynthesis, plant health, yield stability, and quality outcomes. Agroforestry-based shade systems are widely discussed as a major adaptation pathway, offering potential thermal buffering, hydrological regulation, and co-benefits for ecosystem services, livelihoods, and long-term sustainability. Despite growing thematic convergence, persistent challenges remain, including weak cross-scale integration between physiological, climatic, epidemiological, and socio-institutional dimensions; limited integration of climate–disease interactions; short experimental time horizons; and uneven geographic representation. Advancing climate-resilient and sustainable coffee systems will therefore require more integrated, long-term, and spatially balanced research frameworks that link ecological, physiological, epidemiological, technological, and governance-based adaptation pathways.