We liken abundance to the countless grains of sand found in various depositional environments – from alluvial fans and fluvial plains to desert dunes, deltas, beaches, lakes and oceans. But, access to abundant sand is decreasing. Sand basins are under various and enormous stresses, including illegal or excessive mining and decreased sediment supply. According to the United Nations Environment Program, every year the world consumes more than 50 billion metric tons of sand. The only other natural resource more consumed is water.
What do we need all this sand for? Vince Beiser’s book The World in a Grain of Sand describes how sand has transformed civilization: Sand is used for glass making, solar panels, silicon chips, hydraulic fracturing, metal production and building materials. Sand is also used to replenish beaches and expand coasts, and sandstone formations are the best reservoirs for groundwater and oil and gas resources.
There are various kinds of sand, including aggregate, glass and ore sands. Aggregate sands are used for construction, because their angular grains help concrete mixtures bind together. Smooth, silica-rich desert sands are best for glass making, and ore sands are mined from rivers and beaches to extract heavy minerals such as ilmenite, rutile and zircon for metal production.
Sand Mafias
But the versatility and utility of sand mining has a dark side. In February, Scientific American reported “organized crime is mining sand from rivers and coasts to free up demand worldwide, ruining ecosystems and communities.” The article features Abdelkader Abderrahmane, a researcher for the Institute for Security Studies in Africa, located in Morocco, who previously investigated drug trafficking but has recently turned his attention toward sand trafficking in Africa.
“More than half of Morocco’s sand is illegally mined,” Abderrahmane notes. “You cannot illegally mine sand in daylight if you don’t have people in high places.”
Shrinking Beaches
The effects of sand mining also extend to river deltas, their ecosystems and communities. According to a 2023 report in Science, 50 percent of the world’s population lives within 150 kilometers of a coastline. This means that human activities, sand mining, population pressures and urbanization are increasingly damaging coastal flora and fauna.
River deltas cover only 0.65 percent of Earth’s land surface, but their economic impact reaches far beyond their geomorphic limits. According to a recent GSA Today article by sedimentologists Bilal Haq and John Milliman, river diversion, upstream dams and coastal urbanization have decreased sediment supply to deltas.
All of this means that many beaches are retreating, which has created a measurable decline in some coastal economies. The 2022 UNEP Yearbook estimates that sand mining has caused a 30 percent decline in tourism on some coasts.
Potential Solutions
Sand mining remains unregulated in many parts of the world. UNEP advocates enacting a “mineral sand rights” principle to protect downstream communities and ecosystems along rivers and coasts that rely on sand. This principle, if written into law, would mandate impact assessments before mining approvals and encourage sustainable mining practices.
UNEP also published a 2022 report entitled “Sand and Sustainability,” which suggested strategic solutions to the crises on sand beaches. These include grassroots awareness, public participation, additional government regulations and legal action, research and mapping, controlled sand mining and international cooperation.
Among the specific practical solutions are (1) establishing buffer zones around fragile habitats; (2) replacing mineral sand from beaches with manufactured sand derived from crushing hard rocks such as granite; (3) monitoring illegal mining via satellite technology; and (4) enhancing sand recycling. Only one-fifth of sand from construction waste, and one-third of sand from glass waste, is recycled; the rest ends up in landfills.
Education also helps increase public support for sand and beach preservation. Beach visitors can enjoy investigating shells and lapidary materials such as augite, jasper, opal, sea glass and granite pebbles and understand why these areas are important. Black sand beaches, made from weathering and erosion of nearby volcanic rocks, can also be fun geology classes that promote the cause.