Value of Sand Mining
Attributes
Medium: Land
Country: Vietnam
Analytical Framework(s): Damage Valuation
Unit(s): Net Present Value
Study Date: 2010
Publication Date: 2011
Major Result(s)
| Resource/Environmental Good | VND, million (2010) |
VND, million (2014)1 |
USD, million (2014)2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NPV of sand mining in Cau River3 | -5,819.20 | -7,668.89 | -0.36 |
| NPV of sand mining in Cau River4 | -4,642.60 | -6,118.30 | -0.29 |
| Net benefit of sand mining in Cau River | -7,442.50 | -9,808.17 | -0.46 |
About the Inflation Adjustment: Prices in Vietnam (VND) changed by 31.79% from 2010 to 2014 (aggregated from annual CPI data), so the study values were multiplied by 1.32 to express them in 2014 prices. The study values could be expressed in any desired year (for example, to 2025) by following the same inflation calculation and being sensitive to directional (forward/backward) aggregations using your own CPI/inflation data.
Study Note: Due to limitations of time and other resources, the research focused only on Que Vo district in Bac Ninh province and Yen Dung district in Bac Giang province through which around 20 km of Cau River flow through and where sand mining happens quite often, similar to other parts of the river.
Study Details
Summary: Sand mining in Cau River in Bac Ninh province, Vietnam has intensified in recent years. Despite the negative impacts of sand mining on the river, local authorities and people have exerted inadequate and ineffective efforts to control the situation as evidenced by the mushrooming of sand mining activities in Cau River. The purpose of this study is to investigate the current sand mining management in Cau River and to give policy recommendations on how to improve this management system. The study shows that illegal sand mining in Cau River is common and indiscriminate due to the huge demand of river sand for industrial zone (IZ) ground filling and the construction industry in Bac Ninh province and surrounding areas. The number of illegal sand mining dredges as well as extracted sand volume has soared year after year. Illegal sand mining in Cau River has caused serious riverbank erosion, dike degradation, stone embankment collapse, irrigation work damage, and noise pollution. Analysis of sand mining activities indicates that private profit from illegal sand mining is very large. However, due to high external cost, especially the cost due to stone embankment degradation, the net present values of illegal sand mining were all negative at discount rates of 5 percent and 10 percent.
Site Characteristics: Cau River originates from Van On Mountains in Bac Kan province and ends where it meets Thai Binh River in Hai Duong province. Its total length is 290 km. It is around 70 km long in Bac Ninh province and considered as the natural borderline between Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces. The bed of Cau River is quite narrow and steep. Therefore, during the rainy season from June to October, the water current is high, causing the riverbanks to erode and dikes to collapse, resulting in flooding. The total water volume that goes through Cau River is around 5 billion cubic meters annually, of which 75 percent occur during the rainy season. Its water level in the flooding season is usually 3-6 meters; it is only 0.5-0.8 meter in the dry season. The water flow in the rainy season could reach 1,870m3/sec, but it is only 200-300m3/sec in the dry season. Flooding may appear 4-8 times during the rainy season each year at Cau River.
Comments: The study identified necessary regulatory/legal issues that would help solidify the study's conclusion that are worth considering. Overall the computations and calculations presented were well-documented.