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WHY IS
SAND IMPORTANT?
© WWF-Viet Nam Cham Team
As much as 50 billion tonnes of sand and gravel is mined each year — an amount that could build a wall 35 metres high and 35 metres wide circling the equator.
That's a lot of sand. And a big share of it comes from rivers and coasts, depleting those sources far faster than they can be replenished.
And that’s a problem: sand is a strategic resource for countries because it is essential for modern infrastructure, economic development, climate resilience and environmental stability.
FOUNDATION OF INFRASTRUCTURE
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Concrete, landfill, asphalt and glass — fundamental to buildings, roads and urban development — require sand and gravel as primary ingredients.
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Rapid urbanization and infrastructure expansion, especially in developing countries, drive enormous demand for sand.
CRITICAL FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
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Sand extraction supports millions of jobs in construction, transportation, and mining.
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It contributes to GDP growth through real estate and industrial development in a similar way to energy — yet it gets far less attention in sustainability discussions and initiatives.
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In some regions, sand is also a major export commodity, with international trade growing fast.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPORTANCE
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Sand shapes riverbeds, coastlines and aquatic habitats. Over-mining can destabilise ecosystems, increase erosion and threaten biodiversity. Unsustainable sand mining also contributes to the sinking and shrinking of deltas, which are some of the world’s most biodiverse and productive landscapes.
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Managing sand sustainably is key to reducing the impact of natural disasters like floods and storms, and building resilience.
GOVERNANCE
AND SECURITY
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Unregulated sand mining often leads to illegal mining operations, corruption, and even violence.
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As demand grows, sand scarcity can also cause resource conflicts within and between countries.
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CIRCULAR
ECONOMY
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Treating sand as a strategic resource encourages recycling of construction materials and use of sustainable alternatives to river and coastal sand.
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This supports the transition to a circular economy and helps reduce the environmental footprint of construction.
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SAND IS A NON-RENEWABLE RESOURCE
Sand is not considered a renewable resource — at least not on human timescales.
While sand does form naturally through the slow breakdown of rocks by wind, water and ice, this process takes a very long time. In contrast, we’re extracting sand from rivers, lakes and coasts at a much faster rate than it can naturally replenish. This imbalance is especially critical for the types of sand used in construction — such as river, lake, and coastal sand — which have the right shape and grain size for making concrete and asphalt.
WE’RE EXTRACTING SAND FROM RIVERS, LAKES AND COASTS AT A MUCH FASTER RATE THAN IT CAN NATURALLY REPLENISH.
Some important points:
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Desert sand is mostly unusable for construction because it is too fine and smooth from wind erosion. It is also heavy and expensive to transport to urban centers.
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River, lake and coastal sand — which are in high demand — are being depleted rapidly, leading to environmental damage, economic imbalances and even societal conflict. Keeping sand in rivers and deltas is much more cost effective than addressing the damage caused by removing it.
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Along with water, rivers also flow with sand, sediments and nutrients. Unsustainable sand mining disrupts these natural dynamics, leading to far-reaching consequences along the river.
In many areas, sand mining has led to riverbed lowering, riverbank and costal erosion, habitat loss and reduced ground water reserves.
So while sand technically does regenerate, the rate is far too slow to meet current global consumption levels. That’s why it makes more sense to treat sand like a ‘dynamic’ finite and strategic resource that flows through rivers like water, rather than a ‘static’ mineral like coal or bauxite — it needs to be carefully managed and regulated, while alternatives like recycled construction materials or manufactured sand (known as M-Sand) need to be prioritized.
THE IMPACT OF SAND MINING
Sand mining has become the focus of global attention due to its potential environmental, economic and social impacts.
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GEOMORPHIC (PHYSICAL) CONSEQUENCES
Channel incision, or erosion of a riverbed, is the most frequently documented physical impact of sand mining, which leads to alterations in river morphology — meaning the shape of rivers. These changes affect river flows, habitats, riparian zones and species, as well as disrupting downstream sediment transport.
Coarse sediment (sand and gravel) is usually a smaller fraction of the total sediment load/flow of a river — on average about 15%; most of the load is silt and clays, or mud — yet it plays a disproportionate morphological and ecological role in rivers. In-channel sand and gravel mining, by removing material directly from the riverbed, exacerbates erosion and channel instability.
Such activities can change the slope, depth, width and sinuosity of the river — which affects riverbanks, groundwater recharge and can undermine infrastructure like housing and bridges.
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REDUCED CLIMATE RESILIENCE
The geomorphic consequences of sand mining make the infrastructure, communities and investments around rivers more vulnerable to the impacts of major disasters like extreme weather events and flooding. By affecting the shape and energy of the river — as well as groundwater recharge — sand mining makes river systems less resilient to the impacts of climate change.
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ECOLOGICAL IMPACT
Sand mining has been associated with a reduction of macroinvertebrate drift — the downstream transport of invertebrate organisms — fish movements, species abundance, alteration of the community structures of aquatic species and food web dynamics.
Rivers are naturally in dynamic equilibrium, and the amount and timing of longitudinal sediment transport from upstream to downstream. This process is crucial to regulate in-stream energy, shape sedimentary river stretches and ecological health. Dams and associated reservoirs interrupt this sediment continuity by trapping sediment upstream, resulting in sediment-starved, or "hungry," water downstream.
Mining sand from a riverbed has the same effect. The effects of both dams and sand mining are cumulative. Sand mining amplifies and accelerates the impacts of dams on sediment flows. The velocity of water running downwards builds up energy. Moving sediment dissipates the energy. A sediment-deficient flow possesses excess energy not weighed down by sediment. The river will thus need to find new sediment to re-establish its balance. It will find it by eroding the riverbed and banks — borrowing or remobilizing sediment — leading to the widening or deepening of riverbeds. The effect can extend into coastal areas and trigger or exacerbate coastline retreat as well as the loss of macro-invertebrate and spawning habitats for fish.
Sand mining exacerbates exposure to floods, storms and shortages of freshwater, which are limiting factors for socio-economic development.
This can force difficult trade-offs with agricultural productivity, energy generation, urbanization and freshwater supply.
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ECONOMIC IMPACT
Sand mining in rivers has multiple economic consequences, including higher exposure to water supply shortages, inundation from storms for river-adjacent industries, increased construction and maintenance costs for transport, and flood and typhoon-proofing infrastructure. In particular, sand mining threatens river systems’ foundation role in food production and livelihoods, in particular in agriculture-dependent economies. In Viet Nam, the Mekong Delta produces half of the country’s rice and supports 40% of its fisheries — accounting for approximately 18% of the country’s GDP.
Saltwater intrusion, which is projected to rise by 10-15% as a result of sediment loss in the Viet Nam Mekong Delta, compromises freshwater availability for agriculture and domestic use, especially in low-lying areas.
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SOCIAL IMPACT
As floodplains and deltas are among the most densely populated and agriculturally productive regions globally, intensive sand mining often disrupts local livelihoods, community cohesion, and public health.
As sand is removed from riverbeds, banks and shorelines become destabilized, leading to collapses that destroy homes, farmlands, infrastructure and access to clean freshwater
— which can force the displacement of households. River bed incision lowers the water table, resulting in wells going dry or needing to be dug deeper. In South Asia, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, rural and indigenous communities living close to rivers and coasts are especially vulnerable, often without legal land titles or functioning compensation mechanisms.
WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN?
There is still a large gap in our understanding of the impacts of sand mining in the rivers and associated ecosystems where it takes place.
Studies into sand mining have highlighted a critical need for basinwide full sediment management strategies. Too often, sediment management strategies focus only on suspended load (mainly silt and clays) and disregard bedload (sand and gravel) despite its critical role in sediment flow continuity, river bed morphology and applications in construction.
Solutions to mitigate the impacts of erosion are limited, technically challenging, expensive and often don’t solve the problem, simply moving it to another location. Embankments deflect the excess energy to the opposite bank and downstream. Using sediment bypass or flushing systems to maintain natural sediment flow only works for small reservoirs (less than 20 km long) and mostly for fine sediment (not sand and gravel). Added to that, artificially feeding rivers with sediment downstream of dams or beach nourishment is so expensive it is rarely applied.
Solutions to reduce the demand for sand from rivers may be the only long-term sustainable solution. These include improving resource use efficiency, recycling demolition waste, alternative materials (e.g. industry by-products), alternative sources (for example M-sand), and alternative solutions to sand applications (e.g. avoiding using sand as landfill by building polders or roads on stilts).
The use of sand alternatives in construction needs to be combined with raising awareness of the different values sand brings to nature and people. These solutions and initiatives need to also be supported by policymakers and enforcement agencies that have the capacity to implement sediment preservation best practices.
THE PROBLEM IS — THE COUNTRIES AND RIVERS WITH THE MOST SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE ON SAND MINING IMPACTS AND THAT HAVE THE INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY TO RESPOND ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE WHERE THE LARGEST VOLUMES OF RIVER MINING IS CURRENTLY HAPPENING. THERE IS A CRITICAL NEED FOR MORE AWARENESS RAISING IN REGIONS WHERE SAND MINING IS ONGOING.
Sand needs to be elevated in transboundary river agreements: by employing analytical tools and approaches that study cumulative impacts, using standardised methodologies, and focusing on long-term ecological monitoring, researchers and natural resources managers will be able to produce more accurate and applicable data, and decision support tools that can inform sand mining policies and enforcement. Having effective and informed research is crucial to guide sustainable sand mining practices and mitigating adverse ecological effects.
GLOBAL INITIATIVES TO RECOGNISE SAND AS A STRATEGIC RESOURCE
This UNEP report underscores the urgent need for improved governance of sand resources. Sand, the most extracted solid material globally at 50 billion tonnes annually, is integral to infrastructure, ecosystems and livelihoods. However, its extraction remains largely unregulated, leading to significant environmental degradation, social conflicts and biodiversity loss.
The report presents ten strategic recommendations aimed at establishing a sustainable sand economy:
01
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Recognise sand as a strategic resource that delivers critical ecosystem services and underpins the construction of vital infrastructure in expanding towns and cities globally.
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Include place-based perspectives for just sand transitions, ensuring the voices of all impacted people are part of decision-making, agenda-setting and action.
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Enable a paradigm shift to a regenerative and circular future that supports a circular economy based on reusing construction materials instead of endlessly extracting new sand.
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Adopt strategic and integrated policy and legal frameworks horizontally, vertically and intersectionally, in tune with local, national and regional realities.
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Establish ownership and access to sand resources through mineral rights and consenting.
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Map, monitor and report sand resources for transparent, science-based and data-driven decision-making.
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Establish best practices and national standards, as well as a coherent international framework.
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Promote resource efficiency and circularity by reducing the use of sand, substituting with viable alternatives and recycling products made of sand when possible.
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Source responsibly by actively and consciously procuring sand in an ethical, sustainable, and socially conscious way.
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Restore ecosystems and compensate for remaining losses by advancing knowledge, mainstreaming the mitigation hierarchy, and promoting nature-based solutions.
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