Co-creating a sand extraction toolbox for tidal sandbanks

Marine sand extraction demands for coastal nourishments, land reclamation, and the construction industry are rising rapidly on the Netherlands and Belgium Continental Shelves (NCS & BCS), also driven by increasing needs for nourishments due to sea level rise. Extraction from the NCS currently amounts to 25 Mm3 per year and is expected to double by the second half of this century, whereas extraction from the BCS was around 3 Mm3 in 2025 (Figure 1).

Sandbanks are an attractive location for extraction due to the large volume of sand contained within them and the shallow depth of their crests. However, intensifying extractions from these bedforms may alter the natural sediment composition (Wyns et al., 2021), as well as bank morphodynamics due to increasing scarcity (van Veelen et al., 2024). This poses a severe threat to ecosystem services provided by tidal sandbanks, such as coastal protection and as a foundation for offshore windfarms, but indirectly also for protected habitats and species that are further away.