Built on Sand: Singapore and the New State of Risk

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 Thieves Are Eroding World’s Beaches For Castles Of Cash

The pillaging of sand is a growing practice in the world. Taken by hand, three or four meters deep in the Maldives archipelago, or transported on a donkey, or sucked up by huge sand boats in Asia, coastal sand mining, authorized or unlawful, is exploding.

Sand mining: The High Volume – Low Value Paradox

Given the rapid rate of urbanization and the current rate of extraction of sand for construction, and the silent devastation left behind in its wake, the modern process of assigning value, economic or otherwise to this resource seems sadly inchoate and needs to be re-evaluated… By Kiran Pereira.

Land Lost to Sand Dredging

Cambodia has struggled with the environmental cost of sand mining from its rivers, and villagers who live along the banks of the Mekong River say that the land on which their houses are built is collapsing into the river because of the dredging.

Sand For Sale: Environment Ravages

The “king Of Koh Kong” has defied an order endorsed by the Cambodia’s Prime Minster to halt his controversial and environmentally damaging sand dredging activities on the Tatai river in Koh Kong.