6 billion tonnes of sand taken annually from oceans, causing irreparable damage to benthic life

Subject: Environment

Section: Ecosystem

Context:

Some six billion tonnes of sand is being extracted annually from the floor of the world’s oceans, causing irreparable damage to benthic life, according to a new global data platform on sand and other sediment extraction in the marine environment.
UNEP report: Sand and Sustainability report 2022.

Marine Sand Watch:

The data platform developed by GRID-Geneva, a Centre for analytics within the UNEP.
The platform will track and monitor dredging activities of sand, clay, silt, gravel, and rock in the world’s marine environment, including hotspots like the North Sea, Southeast Asia, and the East Coast of the United States.
It will provide information on:
- areas used for sand extraction (sand concessions),
- areas of capital and maintenance dredging,
- sand trading ports/hubs,
- number of vessels and operators, and
- extraction of sediment and other types of activities by countries with Exclusive Economic Zones.
It will use Automatic Identification System signals from vessels and Artificial Intelligence to identify the operations of dredging vessels.
The platform has estimated that between four and eight billion tonnes of sand are being dredged from the ocean floor every year.
This number is expected to rise to 10 to 16 billion tonnes per year, which is the natural replenishment rate or the amount that rivers need to maintain coastal and marine ecosystem structure and function.

Impact of Illegal sand extraction:

Ban on marine Sand export:

Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia have banned marine sand export in the last 20 years.

GRID- Geneva:

The Global Resource Information Database – Geneva (GRID-Geneva), is a partnership between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) and the University of Geneva (UniGe).
GRID-Geneva’s main role is to transform data into information and knowledge to support the decision making process related to environmental issues.