Onboard a sand dredger.
“Sand is the second most consumed natural resource, after water. The construction-building industry is by far the largest consumer of this finite resource, followed by the land reclamation industry. The Sand business has been estimated to be a $70 billion industry, worldwide…” Captions and Photograph by Award-winning Filmmaker: ©2013 Denis Delestrac
Excerpts;
Monaco’s 38,000 residents are today squeezed into less than one square mile of land (2.02 square kilometers), a territory smaller than New York’s Central Park.
As the people and money have poured in, more and more land has been reclaimed from the sea. Since the early 19th century, Monaco has gained an additional 100 acres, accounting for 20% of its territory.
Now construction has begun on a €2 billion ($2.3 billion) project to extend the natural contour of Monaco’s coastline a further 15 acres into the Mediterranean…
Read Full Article, CNN (01-04-2018)
Land reclamation project starts in Monaco; Dredging Online (09-15-2016)
Work has begun on the maritime infrastructure that will constitute the first phase of the six-hectare land reclamation project…
Monaco commences €2 billion project to steal land from the sea, The Telegraph UK (09-12-2016)
Monaco has started work on a €2 billion (£1.8 billion) operation to claim six hectares (15 acres) from the sea in the minuscule principality.
The foundations for the titanic operation will take 40 months to complete and require dredging up and transporting hundreds of thousands of tons of sand from Sicily to create dry land, in a move that environmentalists warn will damage marine life…
Let’s Talk About Sand: Denis Delestrac At TEDxBarcelona (12-2013)
What Happens to a Coral Reef When an Island is Built on Top? the Washington Post (07-11-2015)
Built on Sand: Singapore and the New State of Risk, Harvard Design Magazine (09-07-2015)
The island’s expansion has been a colossal undertaking. It is not merely a matter of coastal reclamation: Singapore is growing vertically as well as horizontally. This means that the nation’s market needs fine river sand—used for beaches and concrete—as well as coarse sea sand to create new ground…
Sand, Rarer Than One Thinks: A UNEP report (GEA-March 2014)
Despite the colossal quantities of sand and gravel being used, our increasing dependence on them and the significant impact that their extraction has on the environment, this issue has been mostly ignored by policy makers and remains largely unknown by the general public.
In March 2014 The United Nations released its first Report about sand mining. “Sand Wars” film documentary by Denis Delestrac – first broadcasted on the european Arte Channel, May 28th, 2013, where it became the highest rated documentary for 2013 – expressly inspired the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to publish this 2014-Global Environmental Alert.
The Costa Del Concrete: Europe’s Coastlines and Urban Sprawl; Guardian UK (01-24-2015)
Two French oceanography researchers expected to find pollution on their 8,345km, 14-month kayak journey from Gibraltar to Istanbul, but what shocked them was the endless spread of cities along the coast…
