Sources of sand and conservation

Abstract

Construction grade sand is in short supply in many parts of the world. This has resulted in growing demand of sand to maintain the pace of infrastructure development and construction industry. Therefore, there is an immediate need to bridge the gap between demand and supply of aggregates by encouraging the use of low cost, easily available alternatives to river sand. Also measures are to be taken to reduce the use of natural sand to the barest minimum by adopting technologies with lowland—no sand content in construction sector. This chapter gives an overview of the different sources of sand and the environmental problems linked to it during their extraction with special reference to Kerala state in southwest India.