SAND MINING IS DESTROYING ASIA'S RIVERS

1/15/2019 From Tibet to the 'Nine Dragons', Vietnam's Mekong Delta is losing sand
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-mekong/from-tibet-to-the-nine-dragons-vietnams-mekong-delta-is-losing-sand-idUSKCN1P8018 1/14
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ESG JANUARY 14, 2019 / 7:45 AM / UPDATED 10 HOURS AGO
From Tibet to the 'Nine Dragons', Vietnam's Mekong
Delta is losing sand
Mai Nguyen, James Pearson 6 MIN RE AD
MO CAY, Vietnam (Reuters) - In the dead of night, the entire front half of shopkeeper Ta Thi Kim Anh’s
house collapsed. Perched on the sandy banks of the Mekong River, it took just a few minutes for one half
of everything she owned to plunge into its murky depths.
Discover Thomson Reuters

“Our kitchen, our laundry room, our two bedrooms, all gone,” said Kim Anh, speaking amongst the
twisted metal and rubble of her house, from which she still sells eggs, soap and instant noodles to
villagers in Ben Tre, a province in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region.
“We’d be better oﬀ living in a cave instead,” said Kim Anh, who has used coconut husks and old tires to
reinforce the riverbank under her home.

Upstream damming and extensive mining of the Mekong’s riverbed for sand is causing the land between
the sprawling network of rivers and channels near the mouth of one of the world’s great rivers to sink at
a pace of around 2 cm (0.75 inches) a year, experts and officials said.
The 4,350 km (2,700-mile) river, known as the Lancang in its upper reaches, flows from China’s Tibetan
Plateau along the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, through Cambodia and finally Vietnam,
where it forms the delta known in Vietnam as the “Nine Dragons”.
Reuters visited three provinces straddling different branches of the delta, where it has supported
farming and fishing communities for millennia.
Across the region, local authorities are struggling with a rapid pace of erosion that is destroying homes
and threatening livelihoods in the Southeast Asian country’s largest rice-growing region.
A key cause is the years of upstream damming in Cambodia, Laos and China that has removed crucial
sediment, local officials and experts said.

That sediment, vital for checking the mighty Mekong’s currents, has also been lost due to an insatiable
demand for sand - a key ingredient in concrete and other construction materials in fast-developing
Vietnam - that has created a market both at home and abroad for unregulated mining.
“It’s not a problem of the lack of water, it’s the lack of sediment,” said Duong Van Ni, an expert on the
Mekong River at the College of Natural Resources Management of Can Tho University, the largest city in
A boat transports coconuts past a collapsed house damaged by landslide along Mekong river in Mo Cay town,
Vietnam December 18, 2018. Picture taken December 18, 2018. REUTERS/Kham

the Mekong Delta region.
“SAND NEVER REACHES US”
At this time of year the waters of the Mekong used to flow into Vietnam as a milky-brown crawl, locals
and officials said.
Now, the river runs clear. And without fresh sediment from upstream, the deeper riverbed creates
stronger currents, which in turn eat away at the banks of the Mekong, where those who rely on the river
for their livelihoods have their homes.
The problems began when China built its first hydropower plants in the Upper Mekong Basin, said Ni at
Can Tho University. That left Laos, Cambodia and Thailand as the main source of sediment for the
Mekong in Vietnam, he said.
Sand mining in Cambodia boomed over the last 10 years, fueled in part by demand from wealthy but
cramped Singapore, where it is used to reclaim land along its coast, and culminating in a government
ban of all Cambodian sand exports in 2017 under pressure from environmental groups.
Hydroelectric projects have continued, however. Earlier this month, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun
Sen opened a $816 million hydroelectric dam in Stung Treng province, near the border with Laos, built
by companies from China, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The new dam is the southeast Asian country’s biggest hydroelectric project to date and will have a
catastrophic impact on fisheries and biodiversity in the Mekong river, environmental groups have said.
Hun Sen has dismissed criticism of the project, which he says benefits Cambodia and its people.
“Since China built hydropower plants, new sand almost never reaches us,” said Ni. “If we use up the
sand we have here, there will be no more”.
China’s Foreign Ministry said in response to Reuters’
questions that it “pays great attention to the concerns
and needs of downstream countries on the Mekong”,
adding that its regulation of water flows from hydro
dams “has already become an important instrument in
preventing floods and droughts”.
Singapore’s Ministry of National Development said in a
statement emailed to Reuters the city state imports sand
on a commercial basis from various countries. “We have
stringent controls to ensure that suppliers obtain sand
in accordance with the source country’s laws and regulations,” it said.
SLINGSHOTS AND SAND THIEVES
Slideshow (12 Images)

Regional oﬃcials in southwest China’s Yunnan province have defended the building of dams on the
Mekong there as “fully legally compliant”.
Downstream, however, the problem is made worse by thieves who illegally mine for sand, usually at
night.
“The unlicensed sand miners are very quick and devious,” Nguyen
Quang Thuong, vice head of Ben Tre province’s agriculture
department, told Reuters in a recent interview.
“They escape very fast, so having groups of local people helping out
the authorities is very helpful.”
One such group in Ben Tre, some of whom are as old as 67, have
been using homemade weapons such as slingshots and rudimentary catapults to drive the sand thieves
away.
“We patrol 24/7, and in the ﬁrst few months we managed to get rid of 90 percent of the thieves,” said
Nam Lai, one of the group. “Since 2018, none of them dare to go near our shore”.
Still, activists and environmental groups worry that on the Mekong, which runs through six countries
with competing needs to exploit the river’s hydroelectric potential, the damage has already been done.
Chinese court sentences Canadian to death

Pianporn Deetes, at the International Rivers campaign group, who has worked on the Mekong for two
decades, said there was a lack of political will among the countries that share the river to acknowledge
the cross-border impact of such projects.
“Without the recognition of the existing problems, I don’t think there is any hope,” she said.
Reporting by Mai Nguyen and James Pearson; Additional reporting by Kham Nguyen and Minh Nguyen in MO CAY, Vietnam; Prak Chan
Thul in PHNOM PENH; Aradhana Aravindan in SINGAPORE and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Alex Richardson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
WORLD NEWS JANUARY 14, 2019 / 8:01 PM / UPDATED 34 MINUTES AGO
China court sentences Canadian to death as
diplomatic row deepens
Philip Wen, Christian Shepherd, David Ljunggren 5 MIN RE AD
BEIJING/OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Monday sentenced a Canadian man to be executed
for drug smuggling, prompting Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the
death penalty arbitrarily.

The ruling, and Trudeau’s reaction, could aggravate already sour relations between Beijing and Ottawa
following the arrest of a senior Chinese executive in Canada and China’s subsequent detention of two
Canadians.
The Dalian Intermediate People’s Court in China’s northeast province of Liaoning re-tried Robert Lloyd
Schellenberg, who had appealed his original 15-year prison sentence, and decided on execution, the

court said in a statement.
Schellenberg was told in court he had the right to appeal to Liaoning High Court within 10 days upon
receiving the ruling, the intermediate court said in a second statement.
“It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies,
that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply (the) death penalty ... as in this case,” Trudeau told
reporters in Ottawa.
Schellenberg’s aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said the family’s worst fears had been confirmed.
“Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and
thinking,” she said in a statement to Reuters.
“It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation. We anxiously anticipate any news regarding an
appeal.”
China-Canada ties turned icy in early December after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese
telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL], was arrested in Vancouver on a
U.S. extradition warrant.
China warned of unspecified consequences unless Meng was released, and detained Michael Kovrig, a
Canadian diplomat on unpaid leave from the embassy in Beijing, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian
consultant, on suspicion of endangering state security.

Beijing has not drawn a direct link between the detentions and the arrest of Meng, wanted by U.S.
authorities for allegedly misleading multinational banks about Iran-linked transactions. Western
diplomats in Beijing, however, say the cases are a tit-for-tat reprisal.
Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to Canada, suggested in a newspaper article last week that the arrest of
Kovrig and Spavor was “China’s self-defense,” but did not give details.
Earlier on Monday, China’s government dismissed Trudeau’s statement that Kovrig enjoyed some form
of diplomatic immunity.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Trudeau should “earnestly study” the Vienna Convention
governing diplomatic ties so as to “not become a laughing stock.”
Trudeau said Ottawa “will continue to engage strongly” with Beijing over Kovrig’s status and what he
called China’s arbitrary use of justice.
Rights groups condemned the Schellenberg sentence while Guy St-Jacques, who was Canada’s
ambassador in Beijing when Kovrig worked there, expressed concern at how quickly the courts had
acted.

“The Canadian government will make representations in Beijing, but based on past experience I am not
sure whether this will work,” he told the CBC. “We are in a very diﬃcult place.”
FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Intermediate People's Court of Dalian, where the trial for Robert Lloyd
Schellenberg, a Canadian citizen on drug smuggling charges, will be held, in Liaoning province, China January
14, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

222 KG OF METHAMPHETAMINE
St-Jacques said Canada should immediately call for a top-level meeting of foreign policy and security
advisers from the two nations “to impress upon the Chinese side that they have to abide by international
law”.
Alex Lawrence, chief spokesman for Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, declined to
comment.
William Nee of Amnesty International noted that drug-related oﬀences did not meet the threshold of
the “most serious crimes” to which the death penalty must be restricted under international law.
Drug smuggling is routinely punished severely in China. Beijing has previously executed foreign
nationals convicted of drug-related crimes - a Briton was executed in 2009.
The court said Schellenberg had conspired with others in an attempt to smuggle 222 kg (489.43 lb) of
methamphetamine from China to Australia in late 2014.
Chinese state television said in an earlier report that Schellenberg argued in court that he was a tourist
visiting China and was framed by criminals.
A lawyer for Schellenberg, Zhang Dongshuo, told Reuters his client would probably appeal against the
death sentence.

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The Liaoning High Court in late December ordered the case retried after prosecutors said the sentence
was too light and improper.
Beijing considers the number of people executed in China to be a state secret. International human
rights organizations estimate the annual ﬁgure at around 2,000.
Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING, Meg Shen and Twinnie Siu in HONG KONG, Tyler Choi in TORONTO; Writing by
Se Young Lee and David Ljunggren; editing by Mark Heinrich and Marguerita Choy

1/15/2019 As sand mining grows, Asia’s deltas are sinking, water experts warn | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-sandmining-water/as-sand-mining-grows-asias-deltas-are-sinking-water-experts-warn-idUSKCN1M1244 1/6
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BIG STORY 10 SEPTEMBER 21, 2018 / 10:40 PM / 4 MONTHS AGO
As sand mining grows, Asia’s deltas are sinking,
water experts warn
Manipadma Jena 5 MIN RE AD
STOCKHOLM (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Sand mining from rivers is depriving many low-lying
Asian deltas of the sediment they need to maintain themselves, raising the risk of worsening land loss to
sea level rise, researchers say.
Combined with losses of soil-holding mangroves and accelerating groundwater extraction, which can
lead to land sinking, the mining is increasing climate-related threats for those living in low-lying coastal
Discover Thomson Reuters

areas, they said.
“We have created a recipe for climate disaster,” said Marc Goichot of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Deltas dependent on the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mekong and Yangtze rivers are now sinking and
shrinking, according to research carried out by WWF – a situation worsened by climate-related warming
and rising sea level.
That is a problem not only because the deltas are home to millions of people but because they produce a
signiﬁcant share of the region’s food.
The Mekong delta, for instance, home to 17 million people, is a major source of rice for the region and
underpins a quarter of Vietnam’s GDP, Goichot said.
“It is 40,000 square kilometers – larger than many countries - and most of it is sinking,” he said.
MORE FLOODS, MORE SALT
At the heart of the problem, Goichot said, is a lack of enough sediment moving down the rivers – and
much of that is the result of mining of sand as a construction material and for other uses, he said.
In some major rivers in Asia, such as the Mekong, Yangtze and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, as much
as 90 percent of the sediment that once traveled down the system is now collecting in reservoirs or

being mined, WWF’s research showed.
That means much less material is arriving in delta areas to replace soil lost to coastal erosion and other
natural processes.
For those living in the deltas, it can mean growing risk of floods, inundation from coastal storm surges
and worsening salt contamination in drinking water.
Kusum Athukorala, former chair of the Sri Lanka Water Partnership, said the loss of sand also means
less water-storage capacity in rivers, and less water flowing in to restore aquifers.
That is a particular problem as climate change brings longer and hotter dry season and growing water
stress, he said.
Worldwide, over half a billion people live in delta areas, WWF said.
According to the U.N. Environment Programme, though record keeping is poor, global consumption of
sand and gravel likely exceeded 40 billion tonnes in 2012, up from 9 billion tonnes in the 1970s, making
it one of the world’s most extracted resources by volume.
“To give a sense of its use, for every bucket of cement, five to seven buckets of sand are used in concrete.
For every kilometer of road built, 30,000 tonnes of sand is used as its base,” Goichot said.
But sand is just as important in the river systems it is harvested from, he said.

“Keeping sand in the rivers is the best adaptation to climate change. If a river delta receives enough
sediment, it builds itself above sea level in a natural reaction,” Goichot, told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation in an interview in Stockholm.
GROWING DEMAND
But sand mining also feeds Asia’s rapidly growing cities. New buildings and roads require it and urban
land is often expanded by pouring sand into wetlands or rice paddies.
The island state of Singapore has expanded its land area 20 percent in the last 50 years, using sand
dredged from the seabed but also imported by Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, said Goichot.
Sand mining remains unregulated in many areas, however, and illegal sand mining operations operate in
as many as 70 countries worldwide, Goichot said.
“In India unregulated sand mining is really an (escalating) menace,” said Himanshu Thakkar,
coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP).
India issues sand mining licenses, he said, which limit the quantities of sand that can be taken and the
locations where mining is allowed. But with limited monitoring, “the actual mining may be very
diﬀerent,” he said.

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River sand is preferred for construction in many cases because desert sand is too rounded to bind
concrete well, while seabed sand contains salt that can corrode metal and dredging it can be costly.
But too much harvesting of river sand is now taking a toll on those living downstream, Goichot said,
with the Mekong delta, for instance, losing 12 metres of land along its coast each year, the equivalent of
a football field and a half of land every day.
In India, insufficient effort is being put into finding alternative sources of sand, including from
construction waste or de-silting of reservoirs, Thakkar said. That means “the rivers and everyone
dependent on them are sufferers”.
Reporting by Manipadma Jena ; editing by Laurie Goering : Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of
Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit
news.trust.org/climate

1/15/2019 Sandmining is destroying Asia’s rivers | The Third PoleThe Third Pole
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Sandmining is destroying Asia’s rivers
Uncontrolled and mostly illegal extraction of sand and rocks from riverbeds for construction is killing
rivers across South Asia and China, and must be tightly controlled
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Banned in 1991, sand mining from riverbeds continues illegally in
Nepal [image by Nabin Baral]

Categories: Articles Tags: biodiversity governance rivers Regions: Bangladesh China India Myanmar Nepal Pakistan
Topics: Biodiversity Water
Share this story There is no house or road or bridge or port in South Asia whose builders
can claim to have built it with legally obtained sand alone. Illegal mining
of sand from riverbeds is so ubiquitous in the subcontinent that on the
rare occasions it is stopped temporarily by a judicial order, house prices
go up and editorials criticising the judgement are written in financial
newspapers.
Reporting illegal sand mining is the most dangerous thing a journalist can
do in India. In the last couple of years, three journalists have been killed,
allegedly by the illegal sand mining mafia, one each in the states of Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. A fourth journalist reporting on
illegal mining of sand from the beaches of Tamil Nadu has been
repeatedly threatened; anonymous callers – claiming to speak on behalf
of a local politician from the party that rules the state – have ordered her
to stay away from the area or else.
The Third Pole, May 5, 2017
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Post monsoon sand being extracted daily out of rivers near Mangalore [image by
Ashwin Kamath]
Apart from journalists, there was the death of the monk who opposed
illegal sand mining around Hardwar, where the Ganga comes down from
the Himalayas and enters the north Indian plains. The monk had been on
hunger strike and had been taken to hospital, where he died. Mystery
surrounds the cause of his death.

Still, activists have continued to oppose illegal sand mining in India. The
recent order by the Uttarakhand High Court declaring the Ganga and the
Yamuna as living entities was in response to a petition by an activist,
seeking an end to illegal sand mining around Hardwar. As part of the
same order, the court banned all sand mining in the area for four months,
and asked the government what it planned to do to stop illegal mining.
There is no response from the authorities yet.
There was a recent raid on illegal miners in the suburbs of India’s capital
New Delhi a er a rash of media reports. Within hours, some morning
walkers at the Okhla Bird Sanctuary along the Yamuna river were beaten
up, reportedly by miners who suspected that walkers and joggers had
informed the authorities about the illegal extraction.
In India, perhaps the most blatant case of illegal sand mining takes place
in the lowest reaches of the Ganga, between the Farakka barrage and the
confluence of the river with the Bay of Bengal. Pontoons are anchored in
the middle of the river, large pumps are set up on them, and the sand is
pumped up and sent to the riverbank through a pipe.
Asked about this, o icials in the West Bengal state government said that
the riverbed is under the jurisdiction of either local municipalities or the
National Waterways Authority of India (NWAI). The mayor of

Chandannagar – one of the largest municipalities along this stretch of the
river – said it was the responsibility of his counterpart on the other bank.
There was no o icial response from NWAI. Uno icially, its o icials say
they cannot do anything because local politicians are involved in illegal
sand mining. One of them also said, “We keep quiet because extracting
the sand and the silt keeps the navigation channel dredged and open.”
The e ects are there for all to see. Riverbank erosion has increased, to the
point that one of the bridges over the Ganga has become unusable – a
girder collapsed because so much sand and silt were removed around its
foundations. Residents now have to take a slow ferry or a 50 kilometre
detour to cross the river.
Illegal sand mining from the mountains to the sea in Pakistan
For over 12 years Nadeem Mirbahar, an ecologist and expert at the IUCN
Commission on Ecosystem Management, has been watching sand and
gravel being dug illegally from the bed of the Malir river that flows
through parts of Karachi and the Hub river in Pakistan’s southwestern
province of Balochistan.
But the government remains indi erent. “It’s an issue about which most
people are not aware, not even the communities living near the riverbed

create a ruckus. Therefore there no state policy or planning to control the
indiscriminate excavation of the riverbeds by identifying and designating
areas from where the miners can quarry the building material. That is
causing a colossal ecological problem,” Mirbahar told thethirdpole.net.
“The people along the Malir who rely on wells o en complain not just of a
drop in the water levels with many wells running dry, but of water quality
degradation,” said Mirbahar. However, the residents do not realise sand
mining is one of the main reasons. The sand acts as a filter before the
water percolates into the ground, and so without the sand, water will just
rush down to become flash floods downstream.

Mining in Poonch river using heavy machinery is destroying river habitats [image
courtesy: Hagler Bailly Pakistan]
The situation is similar across the the Jhelum river (in Punjab), and the
Neelum and the Kunhar rivers (in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), according to
Vaqar Zakaria, an environmental flow specialist and managing director of
Hagler Bailly Pakistan, a consultancy firm.
See Riverbed mining destroys rivers in Jhelum basin

Zakaria thinks the impact of sand mining may be less downstream in the
plains, as river ecology evolves with the change in slope. However, less
sediment flowing down the rivers does result in erosion of the banks and
loss of fertility in irrigated areas and delta regions. Trapping of sediment
in the Mangla resevoir on the Jhelum, for example, has reduced fish
species downstream of the dam. Clearer waters mean the predators have
a field day eating the young of other fish.
For over 12 years, Zakaria has been working in the Poonch river in the
Mahaseer National Park. Its entire stretch from the Indian border to
Mangla dam was declared a national park in 2010. The river has a high
diversity of fish species, particularly the endangered Mahaseer (Tor
putitora), which was on the IUCN Red List in 2013. Yet, says Zakaria,
extensive sand and gravel mining and illegal fishing continues at several
locations along the river, due to ine ective protection and management.
Sand mining and gravel extraction picks up every winter, when the water
flow is low, and it is easier to mine the sand from the exposed riverbed.
Nowadays, it is no longer a matter of using manual shovels and spades.
Mechanised shovels and donkeys with tractors tear apart the riverbed.
Rampant illegal riverbed mining in Nepal

In 1991, the government of Nepal banned riverbed sand mining citing the
collapse of a bridge on the Bagmati river in Kathmandu. But illegal sand
mining is still rampant in most rivers across the country. A case study
done by Tribhuvan University in 2007 said that about 40% of the total
demand for sand in the Kathmandu valley was met through illegal
riverbed mining. As the activities are illegal, it was hard to quantify the
amount of sand being extracted, the authors of the study pointed out.
According to this and other studies, significant sand and gravel extraction
from riverbeds started in the 1960s and has been increasing
exponentially as the demand for construction materials rises due to rapid
urbanisation.
“Most of the riverbed extraction destroys the vegetative cover of the
aquatic environment and reduce the nutrient inputs into the river so its
severely a ects aquatic life,” said Subodh Sharma, professor at the
department of environmental sciences and engineering in Kathmandu
University.
Uncontrolled riverbed mining has also put bridges in danger, as riverbeds
have been lowered significantly. A study done in western Nepal’s Tinau
river revealed that the riverbed has been lowered by 2.5 metres in the last
15 years. “We haven’t done enough studies of the impact yet,” said

Sharma. “Whatever little we have done shows that the future of our rivers
is very uncertain and they have been raped. It is not a term I want to use,
but I cannot find another.”
Sand mafia too strong for Bangladesh o icials
In Bangladesh, illegal sand mining from rivers and wetlands is carried out
with support from elected public representatives, according to local
residents. Construction companies install heavy machinery in the rivers
and extract sand, damaging not just the riverbed but the farms on the
banks. Illegal sand extraction hastens riverbank erosion across the
Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta that makes up most of Bangladesh.
The sand thus extracted is used not only for the construction industry,
but also to fill in wetlands prior to laying claim over it.

In Bangladesh sandmining happens in the open, here at the Dharla river in
Kurigram [image by: Sheikh Rokon]
Recent media reports say illegal sand mining is rampant Narayanganj,
Tangail, Sirajganj, Munshiganj, Rajshahi and Manikganj districts, and
almost rivers of Bangladesh – big and small – are a ected. There is hardly
ever any action taken against the illegal sand mining mafia, despite
complaints from green activists.
Syed Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of Bangladesh Environmental
Lawyers’ Association (BELA) told thethirdpole.net, “Use of heavy

machinery leading to indiscriminate and unscientific mining has become
a cause of concern as these are changing the riverbed characteristics and
exacerbating riverbank erosion. In Bangladesh, most of the sand mining
from rivers is being done with the support of elected public
representatives as they are not aware of the damages.”
Exporting sand
To add to this, the Bangladesh government has recently decided to start
exporting sand to Maldives and Singapore, a er extracting it from the bed
of the Jamuna river, as the Brahmaputra is called in Bangladesh.

Labourers, allegedly backed by politicians, cart away sand from Jamuneshwari
River in Nilphamari [image by Sheikh Rokon]
The decision was reportedly taken at a meeting of the National Sand
Corridor Management Committee with land minister Shamsur Rahman
Sharif in the chair on March 5. The ministry stated that the sand would be
sold at 1 taka (about 1 US cent) per cubic feet.
China, the biggest sand market
In China, demand for sand is greater than anywhere else in the world due
to rapid urbanisation. Demand for cement has increased 400% over the
past two decades, according to the United Nations Environment
Programme.
In the past four years, China has used more cement than the US used in
the entire 20th century.
Cement manufacturing needs sand, and all that sand has to come from
somewhere. In the region around Shanghai, it came until recently from
the bed of the Yangtze River. By the late 1990s miners had pulled out so
much that bridges were destabilised, shipping was hampered, and
swaths of riverbank collapsed.

In 2000, Chinese authorities banned the activity along the lower and
middle reaches of the river. This simply drove many sand miners to
Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater body of water that flows into the
Yangtze about 600 kilometres upstream of Shanghai.
NASA’s Earth Observatory released dramatic satellite images of Poyang
Lake. Comparing images from 1995 and 2013, the agency showed how
miners had dramatically transformed the lake.

Poyang lake in 1995 [image by: Nasa Earth Observatory]

Poyang lake in 2013 [image by: Nasa Earth Observatory]

A recent study estimates that 236 million cubic metres of sand are
removed from the lake very year —about 9% of the total produced by
China. That makes Poyang the biggest sand mine on the planet.
Researchers say sand mining is the major reason why the lake’s water
level has dropped dramatically in recent years. The lower water levels
have led to declining water quality and supply to surrounding wetlands –
Asia’s largest winter migration spot for endangered Siberian cranes and
white storks.
Mekong sand
The Mekong river is another major source of sand for China’s construction
industry. On the Yunnan stretch of the river, sand dredging is generally
allowed with permission from county or provincial authorities, who have
banned sand dredging in certain places, usually in ecological hotspots.
But there hasn’t yet been a clear assessment of how exactly sand
dredging operations in Yunnan have a ected the biodiversity and fish
populations of the Mekong. However, the overall loss of sediment, from
dredging and also held back by large dams, has visibly transformed river
landscapes in countries like Vietnam, where the rich Mekong delta
constitutes the region’s rice bowl.

Dredging has taken place for years along the Mekong, but the industrial
scale is relatively new. On the Lower Mekong between Laos and Vietnam,
50 million tonnes of sand were extracted in 2011 alone, WWF estimates –
much more than the river produces in a year.
See Why silt is so important for the Mekong
This led the riverbed to drop by more than a metre in the delta between
1998 and 2008, allowing salt water to seep further into rice paddy fields
and the entire delta to subside.
The solution
A complete ban on sand mining would have the same e ect as a
prohibition on alcohol or prostitution – it would only drive the industry
further underground and raise house prices, as happens every time the
authorities try to clamp down on the practice.
Across the countries, all experts agree that the one practical solution is to
designate stretches of rivers from which sand can be extracted – and this
designation must be done on ecological principles. Contracts for mining
along these stretches can be given in a transparent manner. It will enable

Harnessing South Asia’s
riversAugust 15, 2012
Will waterways succeed
where motorways have
not?October 31, 2017
Top 2017 stories:
Sandmining is destroying
South Asia’s abused
wetlands surviving – just
the authorities to control the amount of sand and gravel extracted. It will
also earn them royalty – they get nothing now.
Various state governments in India and national governments in other
South Asian countries have such stretches where extraction of sand and
gravel from the riverbed is permitted and licensed. But this system has
not kept pace with the demand for construction material, and that needs
to be sorted out immediately. Sri Lanka has just passed a law to regulate
and have a proper mechanism to mine sand, gravel, and rocks, a law that
can serve as a model for other countries in the region.
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Asia’s riversDecember 27, aboutFebruary 02, 2016
Reply
5 comments
Waldo Terry | Friday May 5th, 2017 at 06:32 PM
I do not agree with the “solution” you propose, that is not a
solution: River mining must be absolutely prohibited because it
is an activity incompatible with its sustainability.
The solution: Look for other sources of construction material
supply; to make more e icient its use; to reuse the rubbish and
waste of construction material and of the roads.
Krishna Roka | Monday May 8th, 2017 at 07:43 AM
I think Waldo Terry’s comment is better than the one suggested by the
author of the article.

Reply
Reply
Arturs Pupausis | Wednesday November 15th, 2017 at 01:55 AM
So this means that concrete is not “renewable” or sustainable, period.
I would like to hear from anyone to prove me wrong.
The problem with Chinese construction is that it is o en poor quality
and does for possibly even takes twice as much concrete than in US
when comparing average lifespan of a building.
It means the solution is to make longer lasting buildings, at end of their
lifespan reuse as much material as possible. As well make more
e icient use of indoor space.
But ultimately economics are geared towards resources over
consumption ;-( Maybe tax on construction may help if that money
would not be wasted for running tax o ice, but going to research and
use of construction material reuse.
Waldo Terry | Friday May 5th, 2017 at 08:28 PM

Reply
Reply
I do not agree with the “solution” you propose, that is not a
solution. River mining must be absolutely prohibited because it
is an activity incompatible with its sustainability. The solution:
Look for other sources of construction material supply; to make
more e icient its use; to reuse the rubbish and waste of
construction material and of the roads.
Dr Satendra K Jain | Tuesday May 9th, 2017 at 10:38 AM
The one of the best alternative is Bottom Ash produced at Coal
Fired Thermal Power Plant.
If anyone using it and wish to use may please inform at
skj108@gmail.com
Leave a Reply

1/15/2019 Sand mining: the global environmental crisis you’ve never heard of | Cities | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/feb/27/sand-mining-global-environmental-crisis-never-heard 1/13

Sand mining: the global environmental crisis you’ve
probably never heard of
Vince Beiser
Cities is supported by
About this content
From Cambodia to California, industrial scale sand mining is causing wildlife to die, local trade to
wither and bridges to collapse. And booming urbanisation means the demand for this increasingly
valuable resource is unlikely to let up
Mon 27 Feb 2017 07.15 GMT
T
imes are good for Fey Wei Dong. A genial, middle-aged businessman based near Shanghai,
China, Fey says he is raking in the equivalent of £180,000 a year from trading in the humblest
of commodities: sand.
Fey often works in a fishing village on Poyang Lake, China’s biggest freshwater lake and a
haven for millions of migratory birds and several endangered species. The village is little more than a
tiny collection of ramshackle houses and battered wooden docks. It is dwarfed by a flotilla anchored
just offshore, of colossal dredges and barges, hulking metal flatboats with cranes jutting from their
decks. Fey comes here regularly to buy boatloads of raw sand dredged from Poyang’s bottom. He ships
it 300 miles down the Yangtze River and resells it to builders in booming Shanghai who need it to make
concrete.
The demand is voracious. The global urbanisation boom is devouring colossal amounts of sand – the
key ingredient of concrete and asphalt. Shanghai, China’s financial centre, has exploded in the last 20
years. The city has added 7 million new residents since 2000, raising its population to more than 23
million. In the last decade, Shanghai has built more high-rises than there are in all of New York City, as

well as countless miles of roads and other infrastructure. “My sand helped build Shanghai Pudong
airport,” Fey brags.
Hundreds of dredgers may be on the lake on any given day, some the size of tipped-over apartment
buildings. The biggest can haul in as much as 10,000 tonnes of sand an hour. A recent study estimates
that 236m cubic metres of sand are taken out of the lake annually. That makes Poyang the biggest sand
mine on the planet, far bigger than the three largest sand mines in the US combined. “I couldn’t believe
it when we did the calculations,” says David Shankman, a University of Alabama geographer and one of
the study’s authors.
All that dredging, researchers believe, is a key reason why the lake’s water level has dropped
dramatically in recent years. So much sand has been scooped out, says Shankman – 30 times more than
the amount that flows in from tributary rivers – that the lake’s outflow channel has been drastically
deepened and widened, nearly doubling the amount of water that flows into the Yangtze. The lower
water levels are translating into declines in water quality and supply to surrounding wetlands. It could
be ruinous for the area’s inhabitants, both animal and human.

A building problem
Poyang Lake, which sits in a verdant rural area best known for a waterfall in the nearby hills, is Asia’s
largest winter destination for migratory birds. It hosts millions of cranes, geese and storks during the
cold months – as well as several endangered and rare species. It is also one of the few remaining
habitats for the endangered freshwater porpoise. Studies have found that the sediment stirred up and
the noise generated by sand boats interfere with the porpoise’s vision and sonar so drastically they
cannot find fish and shrimp to feed on. And there are fewer fish to be found in the first place, say locals.
“The boats are destroying our fishing areas,” says one wrinkled fisherwoman selling plastic bags of
crayfish. The dredging destroys fish breeding grounds, muddies the water and tears up her nets. These
days, she says, she’s lucky to make £1,200 a year.
“I’ve been fishing here for 30 years, and there are fewer and fewer fish,” says Tan Jung Hwa, another
local fisherman. He’s taken to working part-time on the sand boats because he can’t earn enough
otherwise.
The intersection of Poyang Lake and the Yangtze River. Photograph:
Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

Lake Poyang may be a unique place, but the damage being done there is not. All around the world,
riverbeds and beaches are being stripped bare, and farmlands and forests torn up to get at the precious
sand grains. It’s a worldwide crisis that nobody has heard about.
The main driver of this crisis is our era’s unprecedented urban growth. Cities are expanding at a pace
and on a scale far greater than at any time in human history. The number of people living in urban areas
has more than quadrupled since 1950, to about 4 billion today. More than half of the world’s people now
live in cities – with another 2.5 billion to come in the next three decades, according to the UN.
All these new cities require mind-boggling amounts of sand. Just about every apartment block,
skyscraper, oﬃce tower and shopping mall that gets built anywhere from Beijing to Lagos is made with
concrete, which is essentially just sand and gravel glued together with cement. Every yard of asphalt
road that connects those buildings is also made with sand. So is every window in every one of those
buildings.
In India, the amount of construction sand used annually has more than tripled since 2000, and is still
rising fast. There is so much demand for certain types of construction sand that Dubai, which sits on the
edge of an enormous desert, imports sand from Australia.
Sand dredgers in Poyang Lake by Hamashu village. Sand mined here is
sold to builders in Shanghai. Photograph: Vince Beiser

China in particular is on a city-building spree that beggars anything the world has ever seen. Over half a
billion Chinese now live in urban areas, triple the total of 60 years ago. That’s roughly equal to the
populations of the US, Canada and Mexico combined. China is also home to the world’s biggest urban
agglomeration: the Pearl River Delta, across from Hong Kong, bursting with somewhere between 42 and
60 million inhabitants. Even Nanchang, the unglamorous provincial city that is the nearest major urban
area to Lake Poyang, is fringed with fast-growing forests of high-rise apartment blocks.
In the past few years, China has used more cement than the US used in the entire 20th century. Last
year alone, the nation used enough construction sand to cover the entire state of New York an inch
deep.
All that sand has to come from somewhere. In the region around Shanghai, it came until recently from
the bed of the Yangtze River. That turned out to be a bad idea. By the late 1990s miners had pulled out
so much that bridges were undermined, shipping was snarled, and 1,000ft swaths of riverbank
collapsed.
Unnerved by the damage to a waterway that provides water to 400 million people, Chinese authorities
banned sand mining on the Yangtze in 2000. That sent the miners swarming to Poyang Lake.

The boats used to dig up the sand are essentially gigantic ﬂoating platforms, ﬁtted with two huge
conveyor belts studded with buckets that haul up sand from the bottom of the lake. The sand is then
transferred to transport ships. In one narrow part of the lake, dozens of dredgers extend from the shore
in a line, leaving only a narrow passageway for a tugboat hauling a barge piled up with yellow sand.
“We used to make more money, but now there is too much competition,” complains a crew member
aboard one of the dredgers. “There are too many people doing this job.”
Catastrophic damage
Sand mining is causing environmental damage worldwide. In some places locals dig out riverbanks
with shovels and haul it away with pickup trucks or donkeys; in others multinational companies dredge
it up with machinery. Everywhere, the process impacts its surroundings in ways that range from
cosmetic to catastrophic.
Fishers on Lake Poyang look out at industrial sand dredging boats.
Photograph: Vince Beiser

In mid-January, just north of Monterey, California, several dozen cheering activists made an odd
political statement: they dumped 200 pounds of bagged, store-bought sand onto a beach. They were
returning the grains to where they had come from. The sand had originally been mined from that beach
– a beach which, according to researchers, is gradually disappearing as a result.
“This is the fastest eroding shoreline in California,” says professor Ed Thornton, a retired coastal
engineer with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey who has been studying the impact of the
mine for years and who spoke at the demonstration. “We’re losing eight acres a year of pristine shore,
some of the most beautiful in the world. It’s because of sand mining.” (A spokesperson for Cemex, the
company that operates the mine, says via email that Thornton’s conclusions “are based on what we
believe to be erroneous, speculative data and unsound theory”.)
The beach is the only one in the US that is still being mined for construction sand. Cemex, a global
construction ﬁrm based in Mexico, operates a dredger that sucks up an estimated 270,000 cubic metres
of sand every year. For most of the 20th century there were many such sand mines along the California
coast, but in the late 1980s the federal government shut them down due to the erosion being suﬀered
by the Golden State’s famous beaches. The Cemex plant is still operating thanks to a legal loophole – it
appears to sit above the mean high-tide line, putting it out of federal jurisdiction. But protesters want
state authorities to step in.

Environmentalists in many places are similarly calling on their governments to rein in sand mining. In
Northern Ireland, activists are trying to stop dredging in Lough Neagh, an important bird sanctuary. In
southern England, developers want to dredge sand to expand the port of Dover from a stretch of
offshore sandbars and shoals, prompting an outcry from conservationists who fear that would
endanger the seals, birds and other marine life for whom the sandbars provide habitat and food.
Different types of sand mining inflict different types of damage. Dredging from river beds destroys the
habitat of bottom-dwelling creatures and organisms. The churned-up sediment clouds the water,
suffocating fish and blocking the sunlight that sustains underwater vegetation. Kenyan officials shut
down all river sand mines in one part of the country a few years ago because of the environmental
damage it was causing. India’s supreme court recently warned that “the alarming rate of unrestricted
sand mining” is disrupting riparian ecosystems all over the country, with fatal consequences for fish
and other aquatic organisms and “disaster” for many bird species.
Demonstrators protest against sand mining operations in Marina,
California, in January 2017. Photograph: Adara Shilling

Sand extraction from rivers has also caused millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure. When
stirred, sediment clogs up water supply equipment, and all the earth removed from river banks leaves
the foundations of bridges exposed and unsupported. A 1998 study found that each tonne of aggregate
mined from a California river caused $3 in infrastructure damage – costs that are borne by taxpayers. In
Ghana, sand miners have dug up so much ground that they have exposed the foundations of hillside
buildings, putting them at risk of collapse.
It’s not just a theoretical risk. Sand mining caused a bridge to collapse in Taiwan in 2000, and another
the following year in Portugal, as a bus was passing over it; 70 people were killed. Another bridge
collapse in India in 2016 that killed 26 may have been caused by sand mining, though the local
government denies it.
Mining sand from the ﬂoodplains near rivers is less damaging but it can alter the water’s course,
creating dead-end diversions and pits that have proven fatal to salmon in Washington state. In
Australia, ﬂood plains that are home to the world’s biggest collection of rare carnivorous plants are
Cattle graze on the dried up bed of Poyang Lake. Photograph:
Xinhua/Barcroft Images

being wiped out by sand mining. In Wisconsin and Minnesota, farmers fear that a recent boom in sand
mining is polluting their water and air. In Vietnam, miners have torn up hundreds of acres of forest and
farmers’ fields to get at underground sand deposits.
As land quarries and riverbeds become exhausted, sand miners are turning to the seas. The UK, for
instance, gets about one fifth of the nation’s sand from the ocean floor. Worldwide, thousands of ships
vacuum up millions of tonnes from the seabed each year, tearing up habitats and muddying waters
with sand plumes that can affect aquatic life far from the original site.
Closer to shore, in places such as coastal Cambodia, dredging threatens important mangrove forests,
seagrass beds and endangered species like Irrawaddy and spinner dolphins, and the royal turtle. On
land, sand miners have devoured whole swaths of beach, from Jamaica to Russia.
The most dramatic impact of ocean sand mining is surely felt in Indonesia, where sand miners have
completely erased at least two dozen islands since 2005. The stuff of those islands mostly ended up in
Singapore, which needs titanic amounts to continue its programme of artificially adding territory by
reclaiming land from the sea. The city-state has created an extra 20 square miles in the past 40 years
and is still adding more, making it by far the world’s largest sand importer. The demand has denuded
beaches and river beds in neighbouring countries to such an extent that Indonesia, Malaysia and
Vietnam have all restricted or banned the export of sand to Singapore.
“It’s the same story as over-fishing and over-foresting,” says Pascal Peduzzi, a researcher with the
United Nations environment programme who authored a study on sand mining. “It’s another way to
look at unsustainable development.” The problem is that the supply of sand that can be mined
sustainably is finite – but as the great urbanisation boom is proving, the demand for it is anything but.
Reporting for this article was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Follow Guardian Cities
on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion, and explore our archive here
As 2019 begins…

1/15/2019 Sand mines boom in Asia — at a cost to nature - World news - World environment | NBC News
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44230562/ns/world_news-world_environment/t/sand-mines-boom-asia-cost-nature/#.XD0Q-FwzbIU 1/4
In this Aug. 2, 2011 photo, a Vietnamese vessel hauling sand plies the Tatai River in southwestern Cambodia.
By
DENIS D. GRAY
updated 8/22/2011 1:47:05 PM ET
KOH KONG, Cambodia — Round a bend in Cambodia's Tatai River and
the virtual silence of a tropical idyll turns suddenly into an industrial
nightmare.
Lush jungle hills give way to a flotilla of dredgers operating 24 hours a
day, scooping up sand and piling it onto ocean-bound barges. The
churned-up waters and fuel discharges, villagers say, have decimated
the fish so vital to their livelihoods. Riverbanks are beginning to
collapse, and the din and pollution are killing a promising ecotourism
industry.
What is bad news for the poor, remote Tatai community is great tidings
for Singapore, the wealthy city-state that is expanding its territory by
reclaiming land from the sea. Sand from nearby countries is the prime landfill and also essential building material for Singapore's spectacular
skyline.
As more countries ban its export to curb environmental damage — entire Indonesian islands have been all but wiped off the map — suppliers to
Singapore scour the region for what still can be obtained, legally or not. Cambodia, a poor country where corruption is rife and laws are often
flouted, is now the No. 1 source.
Singapore is by no means the only nation taking part in what is a global harvest of sand from beaches, rivers and seabeds. Officials and
environmentalists from China to Morocco have voiced concern and urged curbs. As construction booms in emerging economies and more sources
dry up, however, exploitation of the remaining ones is likely to intensify.
Sand mining began anew in May on southwestern Tatai River, which empties into the ocean almost directly north of Singapore, across 1,300
kilometers (800 miles) of open water.
Despite denials by the main owner of sand mining rights in Koh Kong province, two Cambodian officials told The Associated Press that the sand is
destined for the island nation.
Singapore will not say where its sand comes from; the Construction and Building Authority said it is not public information. The National
Development Ministry said the state's infrastructure development company buys it from "a diverse range of approved sources."
The mining visible on the Tatai River clearly violates some of Cambodia's own legal restrictions, not to mention a recent government order to
suspend it temporarily.
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Vessels of a Vietnamese company were tracked by boat from about 10 kilometers (6 miles) upriver to the Gulf of Thailand, where nearly a dozen
seagoing barges, tugs hovering around them, took on the sand.
The AZ Kunming Singapore, a 5,793-ton (5,255-metric ton) barge pulled by the AZ Orchid, was seen arriving empty from the open ocean, its tug
flying a Singaporean flag. Both are registered with the Singapore government, which would not comment on the barge's cargo or destination.
Ships from several countries, including China, were spotted in sand-mining operations in Koh Kong province, where residents joked about going to
Singapore and planting a Cambodian flag there.
The vessels included one from Winton Enterprises, a Hong Kong-registered group that was subcontracted to export sand to Singapore, according
to Global Witness, a London-based environmental group that published a detailed account of the trade last year.
The report said that miners had penetrated protected mangrove, estuary and sea grass areas, breeding grounds for marine life along a coastline and
hinterland harboring some of the country's last wilderness areas.
Cambodia's cabinet spokesman, Siphan Phay, who was investigating the issue in Koh Kong, appeared angry that the temporary halt order was
being ignored. He described the activity as illegal mining destined for Singapore, a surprising statement given that government ministers awarded
the concession.
A police officer in the economic crime division, who demanded anonymity given the issue's sensitivity, also said the sand is going to Singapore.
Ly Yong Phat, who holds the major concession in Koh Kong, has at times openly acknowledged the Singapore connection. But in a recent AP
interview, amid tightening restrictions and mounting criticism, he said his company had not shipped sand to Singapore for more than a year
because "our sand did not meet their standards."
The dredging, he added, was for local sale and to deepen river channels.
However, a Malaysian company, Benalec Holdings, said it was ready to tap up to 530,000 tons for a reclamation project in Singapore from several
sources in Cambodia, including Ly Yong Phat's LYP Group.
Known as the "King of Koh Kong," Ly Yong Phat is one of Cambodia's biggest tycoons and a senator with close ties to Prime Minister Hun Sen. His
holdings include hotels, a casino and agricultural plantations.
Land reclamation has enlarged Singapore by more than a fifth, and up to 100 square kilometers (nearly 40 square miles) more are slated for
reclamation by 2030. What was once seabed is now Changi, among the world's finest airports, and more recently the Marina Bay complex, which
includes a 2,560-room hotel and casino developed by Las Vegas Sands Corp.
Mountains of sand are needed for such fills. U.N. statistics show Singapore imported 14.6 million tons last year, ranking it among the world's top
customers. Global Witness estimated that nearly 800,000 tons a year, worth some $248 million, were streaming to Singapore from Koh Kong
alone.
The U.N. figures show that Cambodia supplied 25 percent of Singapore's imports in 2010, followed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar and the
Philippines. With its secrecy and lax enforcement of environmental regulations, Myanmar could emerge as a major supplier.
The damage caused by sand extraction has spurred clampdowns on exports.
Malaysia imposed a ban in 1997, though the media there frequently report on massive smuggling into neighboring Singapore. Former Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad complains that sand pirates are "digging Malaysia and giving her to other people."

An Indonesian ban came in 2007, following years of strained relations with Singapore over the sand on islands lying between the two countries.
When miners finished with Nipah Island, reportedly all that was left was three or four palm trees protruding above the waterline. Environmental
groups say smuggling is believed to be continuing.
Vietnam banned exports late last year.
Cambodia outlawed the export of sand from rivers in 2009 but allows it from some seabeds. Recently, some government officials said that rivers
where seawater flowed into fresh water, replenishing sand naturally, were exempt.
Global Witness spokesman Oliver Courtney said the trade in Cambodia revealed a "mismatch between Singapore's reliance on questionably
sourced sand and its position as a leader for sustainable development." The city-state prides itself on environmentally sound urban planning.
The dredging of the Tatai River began on May 17 "with a fury," creating a veritable traffic jam on the water, said Janet Newman, owner of the
riverside Rainbow Lodge.
"Before you could see crab pots bobbing in the river everywhere and fishermen going out. Now there is nothing and nobody," the British woman
said.
Chea Manith of the Nature Tourism Community of Tatai said 270 families along the river have seen an estimated 85 percent drop in catch of fish,
crab and lobsters and were being forced to eke out a living from small garden plots. Tourists have all but vanished.
Armed with a petition, village leaders, tourism operators and a wildlife group met with Ly Yong Phat in early July. He appeared sympathetic,
Newman said. He substantially reduced the dredging and has promised to stop altogether in October.
A subsequent letter from the Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology ordered the LYP group to halt operations temporarily on the Tatai,
citing a breach of regulations. The letter was obtained by Cambodia's Phnom Penh Post newspaper, which made it available to the AP.
Hun Sen himself expressed concern over the mining in the river.
"We hoped that the prime minister's recent promise to review the impacts of the sand trade would lead to proper regulation of dredging
operations," said Courtney of Global Witness. "Unfortunately, the pledge does not appear to have been followed up with meaningful action."
The mining has continued on the Tatai, and violations, such as dredging closer than 150 meters (165 yards) from riverbanks, were clearly evident.
The Post also obtained a Ministry of Industry, Mining and Energy letter extending LYP Group's concession in Koh Kong until Sept. 2012.
"We are just little people. We cannot do anything," Chea Manith said.
Newman sounded a more optimistic note. "It's my hope that the LYP Group will become sympathetic through this experience of having seen the
reaction from people passionate about protecting their environment," she said. "It would be sad if they just went somewhere else to dump the same
on others."
___
Associated Press writers Sean Yoong in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Alex Kennedy in Singapore; Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines; Aye Aye Win in
Yangon, Myanmar; and Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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1/15/2019 Sand mining - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_mining 1/5
Sand mining
Sand mining is the extraction of sand, mainly through an open pit but sometimes mined from beaches and inland dunes or dredged from ocean and river beds.
Sand is often used in manufacturing, for example as an abrasive or in concrete. It is also used on icy and snowy roads, usually mixed with salt, to lower the melting
point temperature on the road surface. Sand can replace eroded coastline.[1] Some uses require higher purity than others; for example sand used in concrete must
be free of seashell fragments.
Sand mining presents opportunity to extract rutile, ilmenite and zircon, which contain the industrially useful elements titanium and zirconium. These minerals
typically occur combined with ordinary sand, then are separated in water by virtue of their different densities, before the sand is redeposited.
Sand mining is a direct cause of erosion, and impacts the local wildlife.[2] Various animals depend on sandy beaches for nesting clutches, and mining has led to the
near extinction of gharials (a species of crocodile) in India. Disturbance of underwater and coastal sand causes turbidity in the water, which is harmful for
organisms like coral that need sunlight. It can also destroy fisheries, financially harming their operators.
Removal of physical coastal barriers, such as dunes, sometimes leads to flooding of beachside communities, and the destruction of picturesque beaches causes
tourism to dissipate. Sand mining is regulated by law in many places, but is often done illegally.[3] Globally, it is a $70 billion industry, with sand selling at up to
$90 per cubic yard.[4]
By country
Australia
India
Sierra Leone
United States
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Florida
China
See also
References
Contents

External links
In the 1940 mining operations began on the Kurnell Peninsula (Captain Cook's
landing place in Australia) to supply the expanding Sydney building market. It
continued until 1990 with an estimate of over 70 million tonnes of sand having
been removed. The sand has been valued for many decades by the building
industry, mainly because of its high crushed shell content and lack of organic
matter, it has provided a cheap source of sand for most of Sydney since sand mining operations began. The site has now been reduced to a few remnant dunes and
deep water-filled pits which are now being filled with demolition waste from Sydney's building sites. Removal of the sand has significantly weakened the
peninsula's capacity to resist storms. Ocean waves pounding against the reduced Kurnell dune system have threatened to break through to Botany Bay, especially
during the storms of May and June back in 1974 and of August 1998.[5] Sand Mining also takes place in the Stockton sand dunes north of Newcastle and in the
Broken Hill region in the far west of the state.
A large and long-running sand mine in Queensland, Australia (on North Stradbroke Island) provides a case study in the (disastrous) environmental consequences
on a fragile sandy-soil based ecosystem, justified by the provision of low wage casual labor on an island with few other work options.[6] The Labor state
government pledged to end sand mining by 2025, but this decision was overturned by the LNP government which succeeded it. This decision has been subject to an
allegation of corrupt conduct.[7]
Sand mining contributes to the construction of buildings and development. However, the negative effects of sand mining include the permanent loss of sand in
areas, as well as major habitat destruction.
Sand mining is a practice that is becoming an environmental issue in India. Environmentalists have raised public awareness of illegal sand mining in the states of
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh[8] and Goa of India.[9][10][11][12][13] Conservation and environmental NGO Awaaz Foundation filed a public interest litigation in
the Bombay High Court seeking a ban on mining activities along the Konkan coast.[13] Awaaz Foundation, in partnership with the Bombay Natural History Society
also presented the issue of sand mining as a major international threat to coastal biodiversity at the Conference of Parties 11, Convention on Biological Diversity,
Hyderabad in October 2012.[14] [15] D. K. Ravi, an Indian Administrative Service officer of the Karnataka state, who was well known for his tough crackdown on
the rampant illegal sand mining in the Kolar district, was found dead at his residence in Bengaluru, on March 16, 2015. It is widely alleged that the death is not due
to suicide but the handiwork of the mafia involved in land grabbing and sand mining.[16][17]
By country
Sand mine in the Czech Republic.
Australia
India

Recently, activists and local villagers have protested against sand mining on Sierra Leone's Western Area Peninsular. The activity is contributing to Sierra Leone's
coastal erosion, which is proceeding at up to 6 meters a year.[18]
The current size of the sand mining market in the United States is slightly over a billion dollars per year. The industry has been growing by nearly 10% annually
since 2005 because of its use in hydrocarbon extraction. The majority of the market size for mining is held by Texas and Illinois.[19]
Silica sand mining business has more than doubled since 2009 because of the need for this particular type of sand, which is used in a process known as hydraulic
fracturing. Wisconsin is one of the five states that produce nearly 2/3 of the nation’s silica. As of 2009, Wisconsin, along with other northern states, is facing an
industrial mining boom, being dubbed the "sand rush" because of the new demand from large oil companies for silica sand. According to Minnesota Public Radio,
"One of the industry's major players, U.S. Silica, says its sand sales tied to hydraulic fracturing nearly doubled to $70 million from 2009 to 2010 and brought in
nearly $70 million in just the first nine months of 2011."[20] According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), there are currently 34 active
mines and 25 mines in development in Wisconsin. In 2012, the WDNR released a final report on the silica sand mining in Wisconsin titled Silica Sand Mining in
Wisconsin. The recent boom in silica sand mining has caused concern from residents in Wisconsin that include quality of life issues and the threat of silicosis.
However, these are issues that the state has no authority to regulate. According to the WDNR (2012) these issues include noise, lights, hours of operation, damage
and excessive wear to roads from trucking traffic, public safety concerns from the volume of truck traffic, possible damage and annoyance resulting from blasting,
and concerns regarding aesthetics and land use changes.
As of 2013, industrial frac sand mining has become a cause for activism, especially in the Driftless Area of southeast Minnesota, northeast Iowa and southwest
Wisconsin.
Much sand is extracted by dredges from the bottom of rivers such as the Red River in Yunnan, or quarried in dry river beds. Due to the large demand for sand for
construction, illicit sand mining is not uncommon.[21]
Heavy mineral sands ore deposits
Beach theft
Resource depletion
Sierra Leone
United States
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Florida
China
See also

Sand mining in Tamil Nadu
Sand mining in Kerala
Environmental issues with mining
1. "Battle lines in the sand" (http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/battle-lines-in-the-sand/2005/11/01/11308232
10734.html). The Sydney Morning Herald. 2 November 2005.
2. Green Left - Opposition to sand mining on Stradbroke (http://www.greenleft.org.au/1997/269/17263) Archived
(https://archive.is/20120903184252/http://www.greenleft.org.au/1997/269/17263) 3 September 2012 at
Archive.today
3. Land and Environment: Sand Mining (http://localhistory.kingston.vic.gov.au/htm/article/294.htm)
4. Mills, Ryan; Staats, Eric (17 November 2016). "Shrinking Shores: Florida sand shortage leaves beaches in lurch"
(http://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/special-reports/2016/11/17/shrinking-shores-florida-sand-shortage-lea
ves-beaches-lurch/92052152/). Naples Daily News. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
5. Kurnell - A Pictorial History (http://www.ssec.org.au/our_environment/our_bioregion/kurnell/history/industries/sa
ndmining.htm)
6. Victorian sand mining moves closer to full production:: ABC Western Victoria (http://www.abc.net.au/westernvic/
stories/s1630536.htm)
7. [1] (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/24/queensland-sandmining-corruption-watchdog-asked-to-inv
estigate-donation)
8. Illegal Mining In Madhya Pradesh (http://www.ndtv.com/topic/illegal-mining-in-madhya-pradesh), NDTV.
9. Rajadhyaksha, Radha (10 Jan 2010). "No attacker brought to book so far" (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatime
s.com/2010-01-10/mumbai/28118792_1_activists-anandini-thakoor-sand-mining-mafia). Times Of India.
Retrieved 22 April 2013.
10. B, Viju (24 March 2011). "Creeks and rivers up for sale" (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Second-Natur
e/entry/creeks-and-rivers-up-for). Times Of India. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
11. Singh, Vijay (3 April 2012). "NCP leader waves gun at tehsildar" (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012
-04-03/mumbai/31280601_1_sand-mining-tehsildar-sand-mafia). Times Of India. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
12. B, Viju (Oct 27, 2009). "Sand mining issue haunts Naik" (http://mobiletoi.timesofindia.com/mobile.aspx?article=y
es&pageid=9&sectid=edid=&edlabel=TOIM&mydateHid=24-10-2009&pubname=Times%20of%20India%20-%2
0Mumbai&edname=&articleid=Ar00901&publabel=TOI). Times Of India. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
13. B, Viju (25 Sep 2010). "HC bans sand mining across Maharashtra" (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/20
10-09-25/mumbai/28251944_1_sand-mining-sand-extraction-crz-areas). Times of India. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
A sand mining operation in the Red
River, in Jinping County, Yunnan
References

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (http://www.blacksands.org.nz/)
Exposes Cops-sand mafia nexus in India (http://www.newskarnataka.com/features/newskarnatakas-undercover-operation-exposes-cops-sand-mafia-nexus/)
Jakob Villioth (2014-08-05). "Building an economy on quicksand" (http://www.ejolt.org/2014/08/building-an-economy-on-quicksand/). ejolt. "Sand has by
now become the most widely consumed natural resource on the planet after fresh water"
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sand_mining&oldid=872693748"
This page was last edited on 8 December 2018, at 16:14 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
14. "Effects of Sand mining in coastal bio diversity" (http://www.cbd.int/kb/record/sideEvent/2682?RecordType=side
Event&Event=COP-11). Convention on Biological Diversity.
15. Resources on sand mining (http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/thesaurus/sand-mining)
16. Mondal, Sudipto (17 March 2015). "IAS officer who took on sand mafia found dead in Bengaluru residence" (htt
p://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ias-officer-who-took-on-sand-mafia-found-dead-in-bengaluru/article1-1
327089.aspx). Hindustan Times. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
17. "IAS Officer, Who Took On The Sand Mafia, Found Dead in Bengaluru" (http://www.ndtv.com/bangalore-news/ia
s-officer-who-allegedly-received-threat-calls-from-sand-mafia-found-dead-in-bengaluru-747123). NDTV. 16
March 2015. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
18. "Unsustainable Sand Mining in Sierra Leone" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120801210608/http://www.enviro-
news.com/news/unsustainable-sand-mining-in-sierra-leone.html). Enviro-News.com. 30 July 2012. Archived from
the original (http://www.enviro-news.com/news/unsustainable-sand-mining-in-sierra-leone.html) on 1 August
2012.
19. Industrial Sand Mining Industry Trends and Market Size Research (http://www.pellresearch.com/Industrial-Sand-
Mining.htm)
20. MPR News Primer: Frac Sand Mining (http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/03/08/frac-sand-mining
-mpr-news-primer/)
21. Xu Jingxi, Crackdown planned on illegal river sand mining (http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-08/08/conte
nt_15651006.htm), China Daily, 2012-08-08
External links

Exploring Sand-Mining in Yangon, Myanmar:
Status, Regulations and Impacts
By: Bethia Kadoe
May 2018
A Practitioner Report
Submitted to the faculty of Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts,
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in Environmental Science and Policy in the Department of
International Development, Community, and Environment
And accepted on the recommendation of
Timothy J. Downs, D.Env., Chief Instructor

ABSTRACT
Exploring Sand-Mining in Yangon, Myanmar:
Status, Regulations and Impacts
Bethia Kadoe
Sand is one of the most exploited commodities in the world and yet the issue of sand-
mining is often overlooked amidst today’s environmental challenges. Climate change, coupled
with exponential population growth, contributes to the need for more sand and to meet this
need through sustainable means. The government of Myanmar, a developing country in
Southeast Asia, is beginning discussions on how to manage this important resource as it is
drafting its National Environmental Policy. Myanmar’s political and economic progress in the last
decade has propelled the country to consume more raw materials than ever before. This report
seeks to provide an overview of sand market in Myanmar by a) establishing a baseline
understanding of sand-mining activities by focusing on the sand consumption rate of the
capital, Yangon Division and b) the current regulatory framework and c) outline the main
environmental and social impacts associated with sand mining.

ACADEMIC HISTORY
Name (in Full): Date:
Bethia Kadoe May 9, 2015
Baccalaureate Degree: Bachelor of Arts
Source: Westminster College Date: May 9, 2015
Other degrees, with dates and sources:
Occupation and Academic Connection since date of baccalaureate
degree:
iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This report would not have been possible without the support and expertise of
Vicky Bowman, Director of Myanmar Center for Responsible Business (MCRB) for
her unwavering support to help me secure the funds and contacts necessary for
travel to mining sites. Her passion in helping businesses and communities inspire
me to produce this report.
Sincere thanks and appreciation go to Hannah Baleta and Sami Tornikoski at World
Wildlife Fund, Myanmar for letting me go along with the survey team to conduct
the sand mining questionnaire and giving me project support. I am thankful for
Swe Hlaing Win and Salai Thura Zaw, my survey teammates for making my
research experience enjoyable whether we walk or ride a boat from one location to
the next in all weather. I am also thankful to the staff at both MCRB and WWF
Myanmar for their administrative assistance and generosity during my office visits.
I would like to thank Professor Timothy Downs for encouraging me to pursue my
research interests and reading through my drafts to make this practitioner project
as informative as it can be.
Lastly, I am thankful for the support of my family, grandparents, aunts and uncles
who always believe in me and pray for me. I could not have done this without their
encouragement and patience. Thank you to all the friends at IDCE for taking an
interest and for giving advice on my project.
This work would not have been possible without the International Development,
Community, and Environment Travel Award which allowed me to travel to Yangon
and the financial support from MCRB for a daily stipend for necessities during site
visits.
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Glossary vii
1.0 Introduction 1
2.0 Background 3
2.1. Existing environmental laws and regulations 5
3.0 Methods 7
4.0 Findings and Discussion 7
5.0 Limitations 19
6.0. Conclusion and Recommendations 20
Appendix A 22
References 30
vi

Glossary
DWIR - Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of Rivers
GA – General Administrative Department
Sud - Unit of measure for a volume of sand having 10 feet length, 10 feet width
and 1-foot height
Kyat - Currency of Myanmar. Officially known as Myanmar Kyat (MMK)
EIA – Environmental Impact Assessment
SIA – Social Impact Assessment
EMP – Environmental Management Plan
vii.

1.0. Introduction
The issue of sand mining has only recently emerged to the forefront of
environmental concerns which weigh many developing and developed countries
today. A report by United Nations Environment Programme (Peduzzi, 2014)
detailed that globally between 47 and 59 billion tonnes of materials, 68% to 85%
of which are sand, and gravel are mined every year and that the amount being
mined is increasing exponentially, mainly because of economic growth in Asia.
Sand, a key ingredient for making concrete and asphalt, has been exploited
in the last two decades particularly, as the world’s cities need to develop housing
units and commercial towers for the world’s growing population. Cities are
expanding at unprecedented rates than at any other time in history. According to
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Report on World
Urbanization Prospects, the largest urban growth would take place in India, China
and Nigeria, which accounts for 37 percent of the projected growth of the world’s
urban population between 2014 and 2050. (UNDESA, 2014)
Sand mining is ultimately, a global problem. To accommodate the needs of
urban population growth, and industrialization, construction has to keep up
building livable spaces. Shanghai, for example, has added 7 million new residents
since 2000, which came up to more than 23 million. (Beiser, 2017) The sand used

for the new high-rise buildings in Shanghai came mainly from China’s biggest
freshwater lake, Poyang Lake. Hundreds of dredgers could be seen on the lake on
any given day. A study by Lai et al. (2014) estimated that 236 million cubic meters
of sand are extracted from the lake annually. This had negative consequences such
as lower water levels, increased drought risk, and a wider and deeper outflow
channel of the lake.
Rising population aside, sourcing the sand is also a difficult task for the
procurers as there are only limited sources. Desert sand cannot be used as a
source because it has been eroded by the wind and therefore too smooth and
rounded to be combined with other construction materials. As a result, sand miners
turn to riverbeds, floodplains and beaches to meet the demands by a growing
urban population.
Due to its limited sources, sand is mined and delivered to the buyer,
sometimes at great social and economic costs. Illegal mining in India has been a
problem, largely ignored by its own government as it is trying to pursue its own
Agenda, affordable “housing for all” program. (Gopalan and Venkataraman, 2015)
The resulting consequences are that the states of Gujarat and Maharashra are
hotspots for illegal mining within Vasai creek. Workers earn 1,000 rupees
(approximately, US$15) for a day of diving into the creek to dig sand and each
diver brings 2000 to 4000 kg of sand every day. (Srivastava, 2017) Violence has

erupted, and blood has been spilled to curb the efforts of the villagers, local and
state officials by the sand mafia, a collection of business men who profit from daily
operations of sand mining activities (Sugden, 2013).
Illegal sand mining is also reported in Singapore, the top importer in the
world with 517 million tonnes of sand in the last 20 years (UN Comtrade, 2014).
Singapore imports most of its sand from neighboring countries such as Indonesia,
Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia although Indonesia banned its sand export after
the disappearance of 24 Indonesian sand islands (Peduzzi, 2014). Singapore uses
most of its sand for land reclamation purposes as it needs ever increasing amounts
of land for development purposes.
Therefore, there is a real need for knowledge to tackle the complexities of
sand trade as it is a common problem facing all the countries of the world. The
country of Myanmar, where this research was carried out, has its own local sand
supply sources, mainly the Irrawaddy River and Ngapali Beach. (Hulst, 2015) This
report seeks to answer questions such as:
1. How much sand is being extracted from the river annually?
2. What are current regulatory framework on the sand-mining industry?
3. What recommendations can be made to lessen the negative impacts of
sand mining based on existing literature?

2.0. Background
Myanmar is a participating country in the global sand trade. In recent years,
similar to the path of its neighboring countries, Myanmar’s sand and gravel mining
sectors have been rising rapidly due to population growth and migration of people
from rural to urban areas. Yangon Division, which includes the Yangon, the
previous capital of Myanmar, has the highest consumption rate out of all the 7
States and 7 Divisions to accommodate rising standards of living for a population
of more than 7.3 million in 2014. (Yangon, Myanmar Population and Housing
Census, 2014) Roughly 69% of Myanmar’s population live in rural areas and 31%
live in urban regions although this gap is projected to close in 2040. (UNDESA,
2018)
In addition to national consumption, Myanmar exports a substantial amount
of sand to its neighboring countries. 4 million cubic meters of sand was exported to
Singapore for a value of US$12 million between 2011 and 2014 according to
Eleven Weekly media which interviewed local representatives. (Myanmar Business
Network, 2014) Almost all the exported sand came from Myanmar’s southern
coastal region such as Myeik and Kawthaung Areas. Not all exported sand,
however, is not accounted for. Frontier Myanmar (Hulst, 2015) reported that beach
sand was being mined illegally in Ngapali Beach on the Bay of Bengal in Rakhine
State.

While estimates vary on how much construction sector contribute to the
national economy, according to Asian Development Bank, the construction sector
comprised 5.3% of the GDP in 2013 and 5.8% of GDP in 2015, which came up to
roughly US$3.4 billion and US$3.67 billion respectively. Construction industry is
growing rapidly over the last 10 years as can be seen by the growth of cement
industry in Fig. 1.
Figure 1. Total Trade of Myanmar from 2007 to 2016. Lack of available data in
2012. Source: Chart made by the author based on data from U.S.Geological Survey
Minerals Yearbooks (2007 - 2015) and the Observatory of Economic Complexity
(2016)

Fig. 2. Study Area Townships
2.1. Existing laws and regulations
The newly democratic government, brought about by the political revolution
that began in the 1980s, made significant changes to the laws and regulations
regarding sand mining. Sand, considered as a natural resource, is owned by the
state. As such, under Article 37 of Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution, the Union is the
ultimate owner of all lands and all-natural resources above and below the ground,
above and beneath the water and in the atmosphere in the Union. Therefore, it

can enact necessary law to supervise extraction and utilization of these State-
owned natural resources.
The Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of Rivers, under the
Ministry of Transport, oversees the operations of sand mining as one of its duties
for river training and navigation. Together with the General Administrative
Department, the DWIR gives mining licenses and renewals. Myanmar drafted the
Environmental Conservation Law which was enacted in March 2012. The objectives
of this law are to provide interim management guidelines for different industries
while the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation drafts a
detailed National Environmental Policy with the help of United Nations
Development Programme. It is expected to be published in 2018. (Myanmar
Ministry of Information Announcement, 2017)
According to the Conservation of Water Resources and Rivers Law
implemented in 2006, Chapter V, Article 13, “no person shall carry out sand
suction, sand dredging, sand excavating, river shingle suction, panning for gold,
gold mineral dredging or resource production for commercial purpose in the river-
creek boundary, bank boundary, and waterfront boundary, without the
recommendation of the Directorate.” Similarly, Article 14 dictates that “no person
shall carry out sand suction, sand dredging, sand excavating, river shingle suction,
panning for gold, gold mineral dredging or resource production from the sandbank

maintained for prescribed river training work, prohibited place in the river and
creek or the watercourse.”
3.0. Methodology
This project aims to provide an overview of sand market in Yangon by
1. Determining the locations and amounts of sand distribution.
2. Identification of the main environmental and social impacts associated with sand
mining based on existing literature.
To seek answers to components of Part 1, an aggregate mining survey
(Appendix A) is used as a guide to ask the sand mining businesses, categorized
into extraction and distribution sites. Maps depicting the locations of sand mining in
Irrawaddy was provided by World Wildlife Fund-Myanmar survey team who has
been tracking the sand mining boats and barges from satellite.
For Part 2, existing literature and data were reviewed concerning
environmental and social impacts that result from sand mining.
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1 Survey Results – Status of Mining by Town/Ward

The results of the survey are shown in Table 1. 113 sand and gravel mining
businesses were surveyed to determine the length of operation years, and the
amount of coarse sand, small gravel, large gravel distribution centers and volume
of sand and gravel sold.
According to the survey results, Hlaing Thar Yar and Shwe-Pyi-Thar
townships have the most number of businesses. The average length of operation
range from 1.5 years in Thilawa to 20.5 years in Thingangyun. Coarse sand
distribution centers are greater in number than small gravel distribution although
there are many businesses that sell both as they are both complementary goods
for making cement. The total volume of sand sold is more than 3.5 million cubic
meters and total volume of gravel sold is 473,191 cubic meters estimated for the
year 2016-2017.
Region
or
District
Township
or Ward
No.
surveys
complete
d
Av.
Length
of
operation
(yrs)
No.
Coarse
sand
distributi
on
No. Small
gravel
distribution
No.
Large
Gravel
Distrib
ution
Vol of
construction
sand sold
(m3)
Vol.
Gravel
sold (m3)
Yangon Hlaing
Thar Yar
30 7.4 27 18 4 864,000 86,685
Insein
Ywar Ma
8 12.6 7 6 5 180,768 36,904
Kamar-
yut
8 10.5 5 3 3 165,272 25,470
North
Dagon
7 10 4 2 2 304,721 10,188
Pazun-
daung
4 8.5 4 4 0 77,471 43,355

Shwe-
pyi-thar
36 8.8 30 18 16 1,479,693 157,205
Than
Lyin
12 5.6 9 9 9 299,557 76,693
Tharkayta 4 5.3 3 2 0 46,483 15,494
Thilawa 2 1.5 2 0 0 56,671 0
Thingang
yun
2 20.5 2 2 2 92,965 21,197
Total 113 9.07 93 64 41 3,567,601 473,191
Table 1. Results of the aggregate mining survey in Yangon
Fig. 3. Volumes of Sand distributed in Yangon
According to Fig. 3, 41% of the sand is distributed in Shwepyithar
Township, 1323.328 acres of which is officially designated as industrial zones.

(Myanmar Industries Association, 2018) Hlaing Thar Yar township, which houses
the Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone, occupies the next highest distribution rate, 24%.
The rest of the townships visited do not house any industrial zone and therefore
consumes relatively small amounts of sand compared to Shwepyithar and Hlaing
Thar Yar.
4.2 Technology and Practice
Most sand mining businesses have all kinds of machinery such as boats,
small tractors, wheel loaders, large trucks to transport and distribute sand and
employ local workers both on the boat which extracts sand from the river and in
the distribution site for customer service. Image 1 and 2 were taken in near Pyay,
right above Yangon Region in the Irrawaddy River. Sand is mined in the river with
boats.
Images 1 and 2: Sand being mined by boats in Pyay

Image 3: Extracted sand from the boat is again mixed with water to be spread
onto dry land.
Images 4 and 5: Two distribution sites showing sand being collected on land
through connecting pipes

Images 6 and 7: Examples of sand collection sites
Image 8: Sand is distributed around town to the customers
The sand mined from the river is mixed with water and the boats tend to
carry as much as they can of this mixture on the boat. The water from this mixture

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