Sand Mining is to remove the sand particles which can be used for construction or for extracting heavier metals. Sand can be mined from natural environment such as terrestrial, rivers, coastal or marine.
Sand holds a pivotal role in construction. As the population increases, people need homes to live and governement needs to build better infrastructure in which sand is the main construction element. Sand mining is one of the largest mining sectors in terms of volume which can be extracted in billions of tonnes each year thorughout the world.
Sand mining is done by open pits also known as sand pits and from the ocean beaches, dunes, ocean floors and riverbeds. Mining for sand is simple as scooping up the sand with the front end loader (bogger) and then transporting it with the trucks or conveyors to the desired location. Another usual method to mine sand from the ocean beds or riverbeds is through the foating dredges and then pump them to the processing plant through a pipeline.
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Regulations and laws apply for sand mining in all the countries. Due to the heavy volumes required for construction and infarstructure, the illegal sand mining is common in most of the developing and underdeveloped countries. In India, sand is classified as a minor mineral under Mines and Mineral Development and Regulations Act, 1957 meaning that legal and administrative control is with the state goverments. India has developed a Sand Mining Framework 2018 for regulating the sand mining by individual states.
Sand mining comes with its own impacts on the environment which have major consequences if the regulations are not in place for sustainable mining. Some of the impacts are as follows
Loss of land - Due to extraction or erosion inland, riverside or coastal. This would impact the agricultural lands near riverside.
Water Supply - Due to removal of sands from the riverbed, it might loose its ability as an aquifer storage leading to water shortages in the area for agriculture and drinking.
Loss of biodoversity - marine dredging causes a lot of water turbidity which inturn affects the marine life.
Climate - Sand mining creates fine particles of sand which causes dust that indirectly affects the general population in the area where it is produced and during transportation. The common disease is the silicosis which is a resperable disease caused due to breathing fine dust particles.
Floods or storms - Erosion of sands near the riverside can cause the water to flow from the eroded areas into the households creating floods or storm like situations which have been observed in many places.
Sustainable mining of the sands need to be achieved so that it can be used for the future generation. There are alternatives proposed by various different researchers while teh large scale adoption of the these new products or technologies would simply take time to be implemented without governments support.
