根据一个关于海洋环境中沙子和其他沉积物提取的全球数据平台，人类每年从海底开采约60亿吨沙子，对海底生物造成无法弥补的损害。
这个名为“海洋沙粒观察”的全新数据平台是由联合国环境规划署(简称UNEP)的分析中心GRID-Geneva建立的。
联合国环境规划署在2023年9月5日的一份声明中表示，该平台将帮助跟踪和监测世界海洋环境中淤泥、砾石、沙子、粘土和岩石的疏浚活动，包括北海、美国东海岸和东南亚等热点地区。
它可能会提供有关下列方面的信息：用于采砂（特许权）的地区、资本和维护疏浚的地区、船只和操作人员的数量、砂贸易港口或枢纽、沉积物的提取以及拥有专属经济区的国家的其他类型活动。
为此，将利用船舶的自动识别系统信号和人工智能来识别挖泥船的操作。
该平台进一步估计，每年从海底挖走的沙子在40到80亿吨之间。更令人担忧的是，预计每年这一数字还会上升到100-160亿吨，这恰好是河流维持海洋和沿海生态系统结构和功能所需的自然补给率或数量。
沙子的开采增加了水的浑浊度。它改变了营养物质的可用性，也导致了噪音污染，对海洋生物产生了巨大影响。
根据联合国环境规划署的声明，不仅海底生物，生活在沿海社区的人们也将受到挖沙规模的严重影响。
沿海/近海开采可能影响含水层的盐碱化和未来的旅游业发展。
据报道，包括马来西亚、越南、印度尼西亚、泰国和柬埔寨在内的一些国家在过去20年中禁止了海砂出口，而其他国家则缺乏立法和有效的监测计划。
据报道，联合国环境规划署在《2022年沙子与可持续发展报告》中呼吁改善对沙子开采和使用的监测。它建议暂停在原始海滩以及其他活跃的海滩和近岸采海系统上采砂，以开采沙子作为一种资源，并在海洋环境中制定采砂的国际标准。
声明进一步补充说，UNEP/GRID-Geneva计划进一步完善数据并开发新版本的平台，使其能够接近实时监测，并将探测能力提高到接近100%的挖泥船，并区分船只类别和其他相关活动。
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▲图源：网络，侵权必删
英文原文
About six billion tons of sand is being extracted yearly from the floor of oceans, resulting in irreparable damage to benthic life, per a global data platform on sand as well as other kinds of sediment extraction in the marine environment.
The brand new data platform titled the Marine Sand Watch has been built by GRID-Geneva, a Centre for Analytics in the UN Environment Programme (abbreviated the UNEP).
The platform will help track and also monitor dredging activities of silt, gravel, sand, clay, and rock in the world’s marine environment, including the hotspots such as the North Sea, the East Coast of the US, and Southeast Asia, a statement by the UNEP said on 5 September 2023.
It is likely to offer information on the areas utilized for sand extraction (concessions), areas of capital and maintenance dredging, number of vessels and operators, sand trading ports or hubs, and the extraction of sediment as well as other kinds of activities by nations with their Exclusive Economic Zones.
For this, it is going to make use of Automatic Identification System signals of ships as well as Artificial Intelligence for identifying operations of dredging vessels.
The platform has further estimated that between four and eight billion tons of sand are being dredged from the ocean floor each year. Further alarmingly, the number is also expected to go up to 10–16 billion tons each year, which happens to be the natural replenishment rate or the amount that rivers require to maintain marine and coastal ecosystem structure as well as function.
The extraction of sand boosts the turbidity of water. It alters nutrient availability and also results in noise pollution, affecting marine organisms massively.
Not just the benthic organisms, people who live in the coastal communities will be severely impacted by the magnitude of sand dredging, per the UNEP statement.
Coastal/Near-shore extraction can impact the salinization of aquifers and future tourist development.
Some nations — including Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia — have reportedly banned marine sand export in the past 20 years, while others lack legislation and effective monitoring programs.
The UNEP had reportedly called for improved monitoring of sand extraction and the use in the 2022 Sand and Sustainability report. It had recommended pausing sand extraction on pristine beaches as well as other active beach and nearshore sand systems for mining sand as a resource and also for establishing international standards when it comes to sand extraction in the marine environment.
The statement further added that the UNEP/GRID-Geneva plans on further refining the data and developing a new version of the platform to be capable of moving close to near-real-time monitoring and improving the detection capacity closer to 100% of dredging vessels, and differentiate between the classes of vessels and other related activities, per the statement.
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