Global construction sand extraction nears sustainability limit

The first platform to monitor the global extraction of sand, a resource widely used in sectors such as construction, concluded that humans drain between 40,000 and 80,000 million tons of this material per year, a figure that is growing and could become unsustainable, he warned. Today the UN.

The platform, called Marine Sand Watch and developed by the GRID center of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), was presented today at a press conference in Geneva, where it was warned that the natural replacement rate of this material (for example through sand carried by rivers) is between 10,000 and 16,000 million tons per year.

“The data demonstrates the urgent need to better manage marine sand resources and reduce the impact of shallow water drainage,” The director of GRID, Pascal Peduzzi, highlighted when presenting the platform.

The platform uses the signals sent by the ships through the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and artificial intelligence to analyze the activity of the ships in all the seas of the planet and discover which of them are dedicated to draining sand.

As explained by Peduzzi, the large sand boats follow a special itinerary, zigzag, that easily identifies them as extractors of this raw material, an activity that is legal in principle but that threatens to have serious environmental consequences.

According to the United Nations, marine ecosystems can be put at risk due to these activities, as they are affected by noise or the increased turbidity of the waters.

It can also put many coastal communities at risk, since in a context of global warming and rising sea levels, they may more urgently need this sand to build defenses.

Marine Sand Watch has identified areas particularly affected by sand mining around the world, such as the coasts of China and the eastern United States, the North Sea, the Persian Gulf or the disputed South China Sea.

The platform not only shows extractive activities, but also the use of sand to build artificial islands (something they have identified in the Maldives) or land claims for port expansion (in countries like Singapore or Sri Lanka).

A type of activity that has sometimes created diplomatic conflicts, the case of which China carries out in the aforementioned South China Sea.

Sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after water, and it is not only used in construction (it is key for the manufacture of concrete and glass), but also in other industries such as computers or components for solar panels. and other alternative energies.

With the sand extracted each year, warns the UN, a wall 10 meters high and 10 meters wide can be built, capable of going around the planet at its Equator, or enough quantity to fill a million dump trucks a day.

The United States, China, India or the Netherlands are some of the countries whose vessels have shown the highest extraction activities, according to the new platform, which is created a year after UNEP began to claim a reduction in global sand consumption. especially on the beaches.

The United Nations Program also requested then that this raw material that “the world mistakenly believes that it is infinite” and whose loss can also cause erosion, salinization of aquifers or the extinction of animal species.

The platform is supported by the University of Geneva, the Swiss and German Environment Ministries, and the University of California Santa Barbara (USA).

Source: EFE