Combined Impacts of Sand Mining Activities: The Nandu River Downstream Segment

With the accelerated pace of urban construction in Hainan province, demand for building sand increased rapidly, river sand prices soared. This led to the illegal and unauthorized sand mining continue to emerge at Nandu River downstream segment. The current sand mining situation of Nandu River downstream section was expounded. The various impacts of sand mining activities on river regime, flood safety, hydrodynamic characteristics of the river, development of delta and water environment have been studied according to measured data and results of field investigation. It is shown that sand mining activities undermines the natural evolution of the river regime; affects the habitat of fish and other aquatic organisms. Water level drops, water velocity decreases, and the Nandu Rive delta coastline retrogrades due to sand extraction. Besides, sand mining has an obvious adverse impact on infrastructures, waterway safety and social stability.