Sand Mining In Vietnam's Mekong Delta Sinks Homes, Livelihoods
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
One summer morning, Le Thi Hong Mai's home collapsed into a river in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, where shoreline erosion caused by sand mining and hydropower dams threatens hundreds of thousands of people.
Sand-needed to produce concrete-is the world's second most exploited natural resource after water, and its use has tripled in the last two decades, according to the UN environment program.
Vietnam's "rice bowl" delta region, where the Mekong empties into the South China Sea, is predicted to run out of sand in just over a decade.
But losses to the riverbed are already devastating lives and harming the local economy.
[...] Over the past two decades, hydropower dams upstream on the Mekong have restricted the flow of sand to the delta.
And sand mining to feed Vietnam's construction boom is also fast depleting resources, according to a major WWF report published earlier this year.
[...] According to Vietnam's ministry of transport, the Delta region needs 54 million cubic meters of sand for six major national highways before 2025.
The river system can provide less than half, the ministry says.
[...] Vietnam banned exports of sand in all forms in 2017.
But given high domestic demand, the amount dredged still exceeds what comes downstream, Mekong expert Nguyen Huu Thien explained.
At the current extraction rate of 35-55 million cubic meters a year, there will be no more sand by 2035, according to the WWF-led study.
"These are the last grains of sand we are dredging," Thien warned.
[...] Half the delta could be gone by the end of the century, Thein warned.
"After that, the delta will disappear altogether and we will have to redraw our map and rewrite our geography books."
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