The Mekong River is the lifeblood of Southeast Asia, supporting millions of people in the region. However, the dynamics of the river and its relationship with its communities are undergoing unprecedented change due to climate change, damming and sea-level rise: fisheries are declining, saltwater intrusion is impacting irrigation in the delta, and vital habitats are shrinking. Coupled with variability in monsoonal rain patterns, even the flood pulse of the Tonle Sap, the world’s largest inland fishery, is becoming increasingly unpredictable.
Recently, new infrastructure developments on the Mekong have started to take shape. A boom in the demand for sand has left sections of the river subject to heavy mining, further pushing the future of the Mekong and its communities into question.
Sand has become invaluable not just for the Mekong region, it’s now the world’s most widely consumed natural resource. In particular, the angular properties of river sand makes it ideal for concrete production. From unassuming grains of sand, cities have been built and entire islands reclaimed from rivers and oceans.
Background
For more than ten years, our team has been researching the movement of sediment and water across the Mekong region. We soon realised that sand mining was having a large impact on the dynamics of the river. Since then, our research has shown how sand mining is impacting riverbank instability and therefore communities who live along the river’s banks. We’ve used satellite imagery to begin to quantify extraction rates in Cambodia, and we’re also looking into the economics of sand in the region, including illicit networks of the sand mining trade in Vietnam.
The Shifting Sands Project aims to bridge the gap between the team’s sand mining research, the general public and stakeholders. More than ever, it’s crucial to understand what’s at stake for the Mekong’s communities and to question the balance between development and its trade-offs.
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