Six Tons Of Sand Per Capita Annually

I knew it was an issue, but not the scale ...

I have long known that our global construction industry was highly sand dependent and that this had begun to cause problems. I had no idea it was six tons each for every living human being every year.

Large dams both reduce water flow and trap sediment. There’s less sand. Tremendous droughts, our new normal, leaves reservoirs diminished, and sand production and transport is curtailed even on rivers that are still unimpeded.

The combination of excess dredging and sea level rise pushes salt water up estuaries. Now play this forward … climate change drives drought … a meter of sea level rise pushes the 50% of us that live right on the coast back … and we seek to rebuild the sand based infrastructure that was lost.

Like every other extractive industry, this hits those who are most affected by the practice, who benefit least from it, and whose governments are oblivious, or incapable of stopping it.