Abstract
Sand mining is one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century. Rates of extraction are surpassing sand supply, and ensuing sand starvation is adversely impacting channel-floodplains and deltas. Therefore, quantifying sand mining’s location and extent, through global monitoring and detection, particularly in fluvial systems, is becoming a priority. Sand mining by dredges and barges (extraction of sand and secondarily gravel) in South East Asian rivers, including illegal sand mining, has become rampant, and a monitoring system is not yet in place. Here, we present a high-resolution remote sensing-based mining monitoring system for sand mining in fluvial systems. We used Sentinel-1 mission, a radar component of the Copernicus joint initiative of the European Commission (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA). The system, tested in the Ayeyarwady, the second largest river in SE Asia, detects sand mining by barges almost in real-time with a satisfactory accuracy level. An additional advantage of the monitoring system is that it does not incur any costs, making it accessible to multiple users, decision-makers, and stakeholders.
Highlights
Sand mining has been defined as one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century by the United Nations [1]
The Ayeyarwady River hydrological regime is monsoonal, with a flood season spanning from June to September and a low-flow season starting in November
We use hydrological-mining years (HMY) in our analysis, which span from 1 July to 30 June of the succeeding calendar year
Summary
Sand mining has been defined as one of the major sustainability challenges of the 21st century by the United Nations [1]. The current rate of sand and gravel mining in coastal areas and rivers (~40,000 Mt yr−1 ) [2]. Is larger than the estimate of global fluvial sediment discharge (19,000 Mt yr−1 ) [3,4]. With extraction exceeding natural renewal [2], demand might outstrip supply by the midcentury [5,6]. Excessive fluvial sand extraction and ensuing sand starvation exacerbate rivers’ vulnerability and their channel-floodplain coupled system and deltas. The decrease in sediment fluxes to the coast alters coastal morphodynamics and habitats [7,8]
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