Sand mining in Vietnam's Mekong Delta sinks homes, livelihoods

[Jim__]

From phys.org

A vessel dredges sand on a branch of the Hau river in southern Vietnam, where shore erosion is growing worse.
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One summer morning, Le Thi Hong Mai's home collapsed into a river in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, where shoreline erosion caused by sand mining and hydropower dams threatens hundreds of thousands of people.

Sand—needed to produce concrete—is the world's second most exploited natural resource after water, and its use has tripled in the last two decades, according to the UN environment program.

Vietnam's "rice bowl" delta region, where the Mekong empties into the South China Sea, is predicted to run out of sand in just over a decade.

But losses to the riverbed are already devastating lives and harming the local economy.

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[Envirogal]

1. The world is running out of sand

It really surprises people when they hear that because they think of deserts where sand is plentiful but in reality, sand is mined to the point of depletion all over the world, leading to a crisis over exploitation.

Years ago, I lived in Hawaii right on the coast near Waikiki Beach. And as a Midwest girl, I was really surprised when I learned that they had to bring in sand to replenish the beach quarterly. iIt really opened my eyes the fact that sand was extracted from another country and had to be hauled in.

Every building, road, piece of glass and tourist beach is made from a Finite material that originated in another part of the world that is being exploited to the point overshoot (collapse), including the surrounding area of where it is mined.

[WhiteTara]

2. too bad we don't recycle

these precious elements we are a throw away world.

[Jim__]

5. It was definitely a surprise to me.

I had really never given it any thought.

[Duppers]

3. There are thousands of square miles of sand in the deserts of the world

Especially Sahara. Is there any reason we could not get sand there?

OR... Get this sand from the concrete of demolished buildings?

[Jim__]

4. It looks like desert sand is the wrong kind of sand.

From the BBC, Why the world is running out of sand.

An excerpt:

...

The problem lies in the type of sand we are using. Desert sand is largely useless to us. The overwhelming bulk of the sand we harvest goes to make concrete, and for that purpose, desert sand grains are the wrong shape. Eroded by wind rather than water, they are too smooth and rounded to lock together to form stable concrete.

The sand we need is the more angular stuff found in the beds, banks, and floodplains of rivers, as well as in lakes and on the seashore. The demand for that material is so intense that around the world, riverbeds and beaches are being stripped bare, and farmlands and forests torn up to get at the precious grains. And in a growing number of countries, criminal gangs have moved in to the trade, spawning an often lethal black market in sand.

“The issue of sand comes as a surprise to many, but it shouldn’t,” says Pascal Peduzzi, a researcher with the United Nations Environment Programme. “We cannot extract 50 billion tonnes per year of any material without leading to massive impacts on the planet and thus on people’s lives.”

The main driver of this crisis is breakneck urbanisation. Every year there are more and more people on the planet, with an ever growing number of them moving from the rural countryside into cities, especially in the developing world. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, cities are expanding at a pace and on a scale far greater than any time in human history.

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[Duppers]

6. Thank you.

That makes logical sense.