Page 8 - Science

D
IN EPTH

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE Downloaded from
Asia’s hunger for sand takes toll on ecology

Scientists link species’ declines to the mining of construction-grade sand

By Christina Larson, in Kihim, India River dolphin and terrapins in India and Instead, builders prize sand from quar- http://science.sciencemag.org/
Malaysia. In eastern China’s Poyang Lake, ries, coastlines, and riverbeds. “The very
from
best
sand
mist
for construction
rolls in
river sand;
morning
A Arabian Sea, young men lead a cou- lions of tons of sand a year, for altering the it’s the Shankman, professor hydrology says
dredging boats are sucking up tens of mil-
the
s a
is
size
and shape,”
right
particle
ple of dozen ox-drawn
of
hydrology
the
emeritus
carts
onto
of
David
country’s largest
fresh-
of
south
Mumbai, India’s
water
station
way
geography at the University of Alabama in
migratory
a
a beach
lake,
shovels
the
of
who studies
birds. Conservation groups are urging gov-
commercial capital. Using
Tuscaloosa,
they
and buckets,
pile
means
will
be
an
by Yangtze River tributaries.
sand,
which
clout of developers
wooden transports high with their rickety ernments to crack down. But it the political Poyang Lake, a repository of sand deposited on March 1, 2018
they will sell to cementmakers. Altering the uphill—and perilous—battle. Last Septem- Between 1994 and 2012, global cement
shoreline is illegal in India, but enforce- production—a proxy for concrete use—
ment of coastal protection zones is lax, says tripled, from 1.37 billion to 3.7 billion tons,
Sumaira Abdulali, a local environmentalist driven largely by Asian construction, ac-
who was beaten up after confronting “sand “For a resource we think cording to a 2014 report from the United
miners” near here. is infinite, we are beginning Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Across Asia, rampant extraction of sand Land reclamation projects, too, have a ra-
for construction is eroding coastlines and to realize that it’s not.” pacious hunger for sand. Singapore, for ex-
scouring waterways. “For a resource we Aurora Torres, German Centre for ample, has expanded its land area by 22%
think is infinite, we are beginning to real- Integrative Biodiversity Research using sand primarily from Malaysia, Cam-
ize that it’s not,” says Aurora Torres, an bodia, and Indonesia as fill. All told, UNEP
ecologist at the German Centre for Inte- ber, for example, two activists with Mother warned, sand mining—on an industrial
grative Biodiversity Research in Leipzig. Nature Cambodia who were filming illegal scale and by individual operators—“greatly
“It’s a global concern, but especially acute sand dredging off the Cambodian coast exceeds natural renewal rates” and “is in-
in Asia, where all trends show that urban- were arrested and convicted of “violation of creasing exponentially.”
ization and the region’s big construction privacy.” They spent several months in jail Scientists are now tracing the collateral
boom are going to continue for many years.” before being released last month. damage. In a paper under review at Sci-
And it is taking an environmental toll that Used to make concrete and glass, sand ence of the Total Environment, Richard
scientists are beginning to assess—and is an essential ingredient of nearly every Unsworth, an ecologist at Swansea Univer-
environmentalists hope to reduce. modern highway, airport, dam, window- sity in the United Kingdom, and colleagues
Already, scientists have linked poorly pane, and solar panel. Although desert explain how sand mining has driven de- PHOTO: SIM CHI YIN/VII/REDUX
regulated and often illegal sand removal sand is plentiful, its wind-tumbled particles clines of seagrass meadows off of Indonesia.
to declines in seagrasses in Indonesia and are too smooth—and therefore not cohe- Sediment plumes stirred up by the dredging
in charismatic species such as the Ganges sive enough—for construction material. block sunlight, impeding photosynthesis,
964 2 MARCH 2018 • VOL 359 ISSUE 6379 sciencemag.org SCIENCE
Published by AAAS
DA_0302NewsInDepth.indd 964 2/28/18 11:03 AM