A Database for the Extraction, Trade, and Use of Sand and Gravel

Increasing demand for sand and gravel globally is leading to social, environmental, and political issues that are becoming more widely recognised. Lack of data and poor accessibility of the few available data contribute to exacerbating these issues and impair evidence-based management efforts. This article presents a database framework designed to describe stocks and flows data for sand and gravel from different sources. The classification system underlying the database builds on the Universal Materials Information System (UMIS) nomenclature, which is used to construct hierarchical order in the data. The common classification system is used to structure sand and gravel data records into a database formatted in the same manner as the Yale Stocks and Flow Database (YSTAFDB), a common data format. To illustrate how the database is built and used, a case study using UK data is presented. The UK is chosen owing to its relatively better access to data compared to other locations. Quantitative analyses of the UK data highlight possible risks in the supply chain of these materials for the UK. Results show that indigenous extraction only contributes 11% to UK sand and gravel production, with trade accounting for the rest of the inputs, of which 50% is reliant on only one nation.