Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta

Sand is a vital ingredient for modern structures and to meet demand, a substantial volume of sand is extracted illegally from riverbeds globally. The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is one of the largest delta in Asia and it has a long history of riverbed sand mining. We quantified the illegal sand mining r...

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Main Authors: Yuen, Kai Wan, Park, Edward, Tran, Dung Duc, Loc, Ho Huu, Feng, Lian, Wang, Jingyu, Gruel, Charles-Robin, Switzer, Adam D.
Other Authors: Asian School of the Environment
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/175464
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1754642024-04-29T15:30:53Z Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta Yuen, Kai Wan Park, Edward Tran, Dung Duc Loc, Ho Huu Feng, Lian Wang, Jingyu Gruel, Charles-Robin Switzer, Adam D. Asian School of the Environment National Institute of Education Earth Observatory of Singapore Earth and Environmental Sciences Mekong Delta Vietnam Sand is a vital ingredient for modern structures and to meet demand, a substantial volume of sand is extracted illegally from riverbeds globally. The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is one of the largest delta in Asia and it has a long history of riverbed sand mining. We quantified the illegal sand mining rate in this major sand mining hotspot, as the difference between the actual volume of sand mined and the allowable rate of sand extraction set by the provincial government. The volume of illegally mined sand decreased from 16.7 Mm3/yr in 2013 to 15.5 Mm3/yr in 2018-2020. An increase in the allowable rate of sand extraction from 11.5 Mm3/yr to 15.1 Mm3/yr reduced the volume of illegally mined sand. We recommend that scientific research should be conducted to assess the allowable rates of sand extraction and the volume of sand reserve. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version This research was supported by various grants from the Ministry of Education of Singapore (#Tier1 RT06/19, #Tier1 2021-T1-001-056, #Tier2 MOE-T2EP402A20-0001 and #Tier2 MOE-T2EP50222-0007). The research was also partly funded by the Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) (Grant number B2021-24-01). 2024-04-24T06:36:45Z 2024-04-24T06:36:45Z 2024 Journal Article Yuen, K. W., Park, E., Tran, D. D., Loc, H. H., Feng, L., Wang, J., Gruel, C. & Switzer, A. D. (2024). Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta. Communications Earth & Environment, 5(1), 31-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01161-1 2662-4435 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/175464 10.1038/s43247-023-01161-1 2-s2.0-85181873362 1 5 31 en #Tier1 RT 06/19 #Tier1 2021-T1-001-056 #Tier2 MOE-T2EP402A20-0001 #Tier2 MOE-T2EP50222-0007 Communications Earth & Environment © The Author(s) 2024. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Earth and Environmental Sciences
Mekong Delta
Vietnam
spellingShingle Earth and Environmental Sciences
Mekong Delta
Vietnam
Yuen, Kai Wan
Park, Edward
Tran, Dung Duc
Loc, Ho Huu
Feng, Lian
Wang, Jingyu
Gruel, Charles-Robin
Switzer, Adam D.
Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta
description Sand is a vital ingredient for modern structures and to meet demand, a substantial volume of sand is extracted illegally from riverbeds globally. The Vietnamese Mekong Delta is one of the largest delta in Asia and it has a long history of riverbed sand mining. We quantified the illegal sand mining rate in this major sand mining hotspot, as the difference between the actual volume of sand mined and the allowable rate of sand extraction set by the provincial government. The volume of illegally mined sand decreased from 16.7 Mm3/yr in 2013 to 15.5 Mm3/yr in 2018-2020. An increase in the allowable rate of sand extraction from 11.5 Mm3/yr to 15.1 Mm3/yr reduced the volume of illegally mined sand. We recommend that scientific research should be conducted to assess the allowable rates of sand extraction and the volume of sand reserve.
author2 Asian School of the Environment
author_facet Asian School of the Environment
Yuen, Kai Wan
Park, Edward
Tran, Dung Duc
Loc, Ho Huu
Feng, Lian
Wang, Jingyu
Gruel, Charles-Robin
Switzer, Adam D.
format Article
author Yuen, Kai Wan
Park, Edward
Tran, Dung Duc
Loc, Ho Huu
Feng, Lian
Wang, Jingyu
Gruel, Charles-Robin
Switzer, Adam D.
author_sort Yuen, Kai Wan
title Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta
title_short Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta
title_full Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta
title_fullStr Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta
title_full_unstemmed Extent of illegal sand mining in the Mekong Delta
title_sort extent of illegal sand mining in the mekong delta
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/175464
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