Fear rises as riverbanks erode from under villagers’ homes
19 December 2019
CamboJA News

SA’ANG DISTRICT, Kandal province — Sitting on an old wooden bed, her shoulders wrapped in a scarf and with her granddaughter in her arms, Heng Yet, 73, is worried that the land might fall away from under her house.

The house, on the Bassac’s riverbank in Raka Khpos commune’s Koh Kor village, is under threat from the commercial sand dredging happening along the river, she says.

The village has been hit with sandbank collapses already. Families have lost their land and houses, and are demanding compensation.

“I have lived here for a long time. It never collapsed before,” Yet says. “I’m very scared, but what could I do? We are just people.”

The land behind the home of housewife Yong Vannary, 24, has already begun to slip away. Her house has cracked.

“I’m afraid when we are sleeping,” Vannary says.

Her washhouse is by the river, and these days she does not dare to go in. “Washing clothes, going to the toilet, taking a bath — I need to go to my niece’s place,” she says.

Sok Chantra, 42, is a victim of the same circumstances. He says the riverbank-collapses only started in the past two years, coinciding with commercial sand-dredging operations nearby.
Full article: https://cambojanews.com/fear-rises-as-r ... ers-homes/

Interesting read on recent studies on the consequences of Mekong sand dredging being undertaken by researchers at the University of Southampton, UK.

January 14, 2020 3:06 am AEDT
Unsustainable sand mining is threatening lives along Mekong River in Cambodia
Sand mining in the Mekong River in Cambodia is increasing the risk of dangerous riverbank callapse.

It’s a resource used in global construction and mined from rivers and coasts across the world. Now new research, as part of a project led by University of Southampton, has shown sand mining is causing river beds to lower, leading to riverbank instability and increasing the likelihood of dangerous river bank collapse, damaging infrastructure and housing and putting lives at risk.

The new research has been published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

Researchers focused on the Mekong River – one of the world’s major sand-bedded rivers – in Cambodia.

Dr Chris Hackney, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton, now based at the University of Hull’s Energy and Environment Institute, who led the research, said: “With the world currently undergoing rapid population growth and urbanisation, concrete production has grown massively, fuelling unprecedented demand for sand, so much so that sand is now the most consumed resource on the planet, after water”

The research was undertaken as part of a NERC funded project led by Professor Stephen Darby at the University of Southampton, which is studying the impact of climate change on the fluctuation of sediment through the Mekong.

Professor Darby added, “Much of the sand used in the production of concrete comes from the world’s big sand-bedded rivers, like the Mekong. There has long been a concern that sand mining from the Mekong is causing serious problems, but our work is the first to provide a comprehensive, rigorous, estimate not only of the rate at which sand is being removed from the system but how this compares to the natural replenishment of sand by river processes, as well as the adverse impacts unsustainable sand mining has on river bank erosion.”
Full article: https://www.miragenews.com/unsustainabl ... -cambodia/