![Industrial sand mining is no harmless harvest Industrial sand mining is no harmless harvest](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/SZjBdCvXzdW4Ygt94axh3r/a0382d26-bd68-458f-94bd-7bbeabcd1e8c.jpg/r0_130_2500_1537_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Fortunately, we see sand as beach, not as the world's most used construction material and its most trafficked natural resource (by volume), after water.
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Between Catherine Hill Bay and Nelson Bay, the Hunter has more than 50 named beaches. They haven't been commodified, they aren't for sale. Imagine, though, if we valued beaches differently, would the Hunter coastline host the world's largest sand quarrying landscape?
It sounds fanciful, until you think what we've done to the Upper Hunter in the quest for coal.
A fellow economic geographer from the University of Freiburg in Germany, Robert John, recently published an article on sand extraction in the journal Compass. The piece says that sand is used predominantly for making concrete, asphalt and glass. Globally, concrete uses 30 billion tonnes of sand annually. Most concrete is consumed in developing nations because of rapid rates of urban growth.
Central to the economics of sand is that it is a bulky commodity and expensive to transport. The construction industry therefore looks for local sources of sand. In the Lower Hunter, the sand belt paralleling Stockton beach, stretching north from Fullerton Cove, hosts about 10 sand quarries.
Contrary to popular myth, Hunter sand doesn't end up on Hawaiian beaches or golf courses. Rather, it travels no further than the concrete batching plants supplying building projects in the Lower Hunter and Greater Sydney.
Periodically, it should be said, "silica sand" is exported from Newcastle to Japan and the Philippines, for glassmaking, hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), filtration compounds and abrasive products. But not onto foreign beaches or into sand traps.
Contrary to popular myth, Hunter sand doesn't end up on Hawaiian beaches or golf courses.
Sand is also used globally as landfill. Famously, Singapore's Marina precinct - built on 360 hectares of a reclaimed bay - exhausted local sand supply; and so aggressively did Singapore plunder sand from adjoining nations that bans on sand exports were imposed by Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia.
A paradox of sand mining is that while sand production needs almost no processing and has minimal waste, the sheer bulk of sand removal creates monumental environmental problems. Sand flow into oceans from the world's large rivers is estimated to have fallen permanently by between 50 per cent and 95 per cent due to the combination of sand harvesting and dams.
At Stockton beach we see how a relatively small construction, a breakwall, can have severe environmental consequences because of its impact on offshore sand movement.
The removal of sand on a massive industrial scale has enormous impacts on beaches, reefs, wetlands and fish breeding grounds.
An issue in the developing world is the harvesting of sand from remote regions where the fragility of the environment is poorly understood. Quarrying along the Stockton dunes is closely monitored (and frequently opposed) by environmental scientists, aware of the unique characteristics of a dune system created 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
Cowboy miners in the third world easily avoid such scrutiny. Moreover, the light infrastructure needed for sand quarrying enables rapid exhaustion of a sand resource with no legacy of gain for local landholders.
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A further concern is China, estimated to be responsible for two thirds of current world sand and aggregate use. China's willingness to elevate economic outcomes over environmental concerns suggests the consequences of sand extraction in China aren't good ones.
The regulation of sand mining needs attention, says Robert John. The rollout of concrete and asphalt in Europe and North America mainly occurred in the decades after World War II. Since then, riverine sand mining is pretty much banned and coastal dune quarrying greatly restricted, like it is in the lower Hunter.
Therefore, as demand for concrete slows in richer nations, the monitoring of sand extraction is largely in the hands of local authorities, which might be fine when a locality is populated by good scientists and vigilant citizens.
But, argues Robert John, decentralised responsibility leaves a void in national regulations and international treaties, essential elements in the fight for the protection of oceans, forests, reefs, wilderness areas and threatened species.
Sand, however, isn't colourful or cuddly, and we think there is so much of it, an endless supply, and that its removal and use are harmless.
Just like we once thought for coal. But never take anything for granted.
Phillip O'Neill is professor of economic geography at Western Sydney University.
READ MORE PHILLIP O'NEILL COLUMNS
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