Urgent shifts in building practices are needed to tackle the global sand crisis
A rapid increase in the demand for construction sand is driving shortages and inequality around the world. Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Sciences at Leiden University have mapped the growing need for sand, as well as the bottlenecks and possible solutions. They have published their findings in Nature Sustainability.
Sand is an essential component in concrete – one of the world’s most important building materials. It literally forms the foundations of our society. At the same time, the world is experiencing an unfolding and largely underestimated sand crisis. Easily accessible natural sand resources are being exploited much faster than they are renewed, and this is causing huge environmental and social harm.
Desert sand and sea sand are unusable
While it may seem abundant, a lot of sand is not useable for construction. For example, desert sand is too smooth to be used as a binding agent for concrete and sea sand is too high in chloride levels for most construction purposes. Most construction sand is extracted from rivers, lakes and shorelines: regions with high environmental and human impacts.
Organised gangs take over and ecosystems collapse
The governance of sand resources is seen as very poor by experts. Lead author Xiaoyang Zhong: ‘Sand overexploitation has commonly driven ecosystem destruction, shoreline erosion, biodiversity loss and food loss. The social consequences can include reduced resilience to disasters and a rise in corruption and crime’. Illegal sand mining has been reported in over 70 countries. It often involves highly organised gangs and threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people that live along the world’s rivers and floodplains, from Cambodia to California, from the Middle East to China.
Future growth in sand demand by 2060: up to 500%
The researchers at Leiden University set out to explore the increasing sand demand for concrete and glass in residential and commercial buildings worldwide by 2060. According to the researchers, growth is likely to be most significant in lower-income regions such as Western and Eastern Africa, where over 500% of current building-sand demand is expected by 2060, followed by Southern Africa (419%), India (294%) and areas of South Asia (269%).
Halving the future demand is possible
The researchers at Leiden University set out to explore the increasing sand demand for concrete and glass in residential and commercial buildings worldwide by 2060. According to the researchers, growth is likely to be most significant in lower-income regions such as Western and Eastern Africa, where over 500% of current building-sand demand is expected by 2060, followed by Southern Africa (419%), India (294%) and areas of South Asia (269%).
International cooperation is essential
The senior author of the research is Paul Behrens, an assistant professor of environmental change. ‘International cooperation in sand extraction, material recycling and building technologies is essential in addressing the inequalities in access to shelter and resources for infrastructure,’ he says. Researchers don’t know exactly how large the global sand supply is, but easily accessible sand around the world is disappearing at an alarming rate with deep ecosystem impacts. ‘Better governance and planning will be needed to ensure future generations will have enough sand resources.’