Environmental impacts of sand mining in the city of Santarém, Amazon region, Northern Brazil

Eduardo Francisco Silva (), Darlisson Fernandes Bento, Anderson Conceição Mendes, Fábio Góis Mota, Luiz Carlos Silva Mota, Arthur Iven Tavares Fonseca, Rodolfo Maduro Almeida and Livaldo Oliveira Santos
Additional contact information
Eduardo Francisco Silva: Federal University of Pará
Darlisson Fernandes Bento: Federal University of Western Pará
Anderson Conceição Mendes: Federal University of Pará
Fábio Góis Mota: Federal University of Western Pará
Luiz Carlos Silva Mota: Federal University of Western Pará
Arthur Iven Tavares Fonseca: Federal University of Pará
Rodolfo Maduro Almeida: Federal University of Western Pará
Livaldo Oliveira Santos: Federal University of Western Pará

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2020, vol. 22, issue 1, No 4, 47-60

Abstract: Abstract The urban growth in the Amazon countryside region was led by great infrastructure projects, which demanded a major amount of raw material for civil construction such as sand. The sand mining in the Santarém city, Pará state, is being developed over siliciclastic rocks from the Alter do Chão Formation. This exploitation lacks technical knowledge and standards, leading to low regard for the environment. The main purposes of this paper are to map the sand exploitation areas in Santarém and to understand their impacts on nearby communities throughout the whole life cycle of the mine. For that a case study was performed in Serra do Índio, where sand mining was an important activity for many years. The volume of withdrawn sand was determined, the environmental impacts were identified and classified, and measures to mitigate the main impacts were proposed. Overall, 21 sand-mining areas were identified in Santarém. Seven of them are legally active, three are irregularly exploited, and eleven are inactive. All of them use mechanical dismantle for the extraction process. This method generates soil compaction and emits air and sound pollution on site and to nearby areas. In Serra do Índio, between 2002 and 2014, around 14,059 m3 of sand were extracted. As a consequence, laminar flows and ravines, which facilitate gravitational mass movements, caused siltation of nearby rivers. The lack of technical criteria has decreased the mines’ lifetime and increased the environmental harm related to the sand exploitation, in Santarém, Amazon countryside region.

Keywords: Sand mining; Amazon; Santarém city; Environmental impacts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-018-0183-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:22:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s10668-018-0183-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-018-0183-2

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().