All around Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the river is strewn with suction dredger platforms and dredging vessels pumping up sand from the river bed.

It doesn’t take long when travelling on the Mekong to realise just how extensive the human impact of sand mining really is.

This issue is acute along the banks of the Mekong River in Cambodia and Vietnam where, since 2013, a team of researchers led by the University of Southampton and including colleagues from the Universities of Hull, Exeter and Illinois, have been studying the dynamics of sediment movement through the Mekong River and its delta. Around the globe the humble grain of sand is big business it is the most extracted natural resource on the planet (with the exception of water), yet the process of removing sediment from rivers has major implications for the stability of river channels, riverine ecology and it has long been suspected of driving increased incidences in river bank collapse. Hidden in plain sight, yet it provides the foundations on which modern society functions.

Sand mining dredge images