Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • COMMENT

Time is running out for sand

Sand and gravel are being extracted faster than they can be replaced. Monitor and manage this resource globally, urge Mette Bendixen and colleagues.
  1. Mette Bendixen

    1. Mette Bendixen is a research fellow at the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  2. Jim Best

    1. Jim Best is Threet professor of sedimentary geology and professor of geography at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  3. Chris Hackney

    1. Chris Hackney is a research fellow in the Energy and Environment Institute at the University of Hull, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

  4. Lars Lønsmann Iversen

    1. Lars Lønsmann Iversen is a research fellow at the School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

A labourer carries away large basket of wet sand that has been dug from the seafloor of the Lagos Lagoon.

In Lagos Lagoon in Nigeria, labourers dig sand from the sea floor by hand. Credit: Robin Hammond/Panos

What links the building you live in, the glass you drink from and the computer you work on? Sand. It is a key ingredient of modern life and yet, astonishingly, no-one knows how much sand there is or how much is being mined.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 571, 29-31 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02042-4

References

  1. Torres, A., Brandt, J., Lear, K. & Liu, J. Science 357, 970–971 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Sverdrup, H. U., Koca, D. & Schlyter, P. BioPhys. Econ. Res. Qual. 2, 8 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Koehnken, L. & Rintoul, M. Impacts of Sand Mining on Ecosystem Structure, Process and Biodiversity in Rivers (WWF, 2018).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Peduzzi, P. Environ. Dev. 11, 208–218 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Allen, G. H. & Pavelsky, T. M. Science 361, 585–588 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. United Nations Environment Programme. Sand and Sustainability: Finding New Solutions for Environmental Governance of Global Sand Resources (UNEP, 2019).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Best, J. Nature Geosci. 12, 7–21 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Lamb, V., Marschke, M. & Rigg, J. Ann. Am. Assoc. Geogr. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2018.1541401 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bendixen, M. et al. Nature Sustain. 2, 98–104 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Mouyen, M. et al. Nature Commun. 9, 3384 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • Postdoctoral Fellow

    The Dubal Laboratory of Neuroscience and Aging at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) seeks postdoctoral fellows to investigate the ...

    San Francisco, California

    University of California, San Francsico

  • Postdoctoral Associate

    Houston, Texas (US)

    Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)

  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow

    Description Applications are invited for a postdoctoral fellow position at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health, to participate...

    Toronto (City), Ontario (CA)

    Sinai Health

  • Postdoctoral Research Associate - Surgery

    Memphis, Tennessee

    St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

  • Open Rank Faculty Position in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics

    The Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics (www.virginia.edu/bmg) and the University of Virginia Cancer Center

    Charlottesville, Virginia

    Biochemistry & Molecular Genetics

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links