Sands of Change: The Global Challenge of Sand Mining

Sand is one of the most important industrial raw materials on the planet and, after water, is the second most utilised resource on Earth, after water. The global demand for sand is due to its use in the dominant construction material of the modern world, concrete. Estimates suggest that global sand demand increased by 23 times between 1900 and 2010, with a projected annual demand of 82 million tonnes per annum by 2060. Human mass migration to cities has led to rapid, ongoing urban growth in many parts of the world fuelling an ever increasing demand for construction raw materials and also mineral sands.

If not adequately managed, this demand can lead to extensive, unregulated and illegal sand mining. Illegal sand mining has been reported from 70 countries often largely involving artisanal and small-scale mining operations, but also larger scale criminality involving criminal cartels and sand “mafias” and associated conflict. Whilst on a local scale, illegal sand mining can provide employment and raw materials needed for development, unregulated mining has a considerable cumulative environmental impact.

For many, sand is seen as a freely available, and easily extracted material, yet, when sand is not adequately valued, supply can become inadequate to meet society’s needs, causing price fluctuations and shortages along with significant local and regional environmental impacts. In many places, this is a supply system that is either breaking down or has effectively already broken down.

Geoscience can play a crucial role in the monitoring and management of both legal and illegal sand resources, from understanding the location of deposits, the chemical and physical properties of sand, and how this relates to its end use, through to modelling the impacts of extraction and understanding how we can reduce our reliance on sand for a sustainable future.

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