Substantial increase in China’s manufactured sand supply since 2010

Abstract

As the world’s second most consumed resource, sand is being depleted at an alarming rate. China accounted for nearly half of the world’s sand consumption in 2012. Here we present a material flow analysis of sand from 1995 to 2020 that shows China’s overall sand supply surged by approximately 400% over the study period, yet the proportion of natural sand dropped from ~80% to ~21% due to the increasing use of manufactured sand. From 2010 to 2020, China’s natural sand supply nearly halved due to the strict policies on natural sand mining and the promotion of manufactured sand. This shift demonstrates a possibility for mitigating impacts on natural sand resources during industrialization and urbanization. The increasing use of manufactured sand in China since 2010 has greatly reduced the proportion of natural sand in the country’s total sand supply, from 80% in 1995 to 21% in 2020, according to a material flow analysis of sand in China.