Providing ecosystem-based recommendations for large-scale sand extraction.

Sand is the second most extracted natural resource globally, exceeding fossil fuels and biomass. Sand extraction volumes are expected to increase drastically for ever-increasing infrastructure projects and to ensure coastal protection by sand nourishments. Large-scale marine sand extraction has important ecosystem effects through changes in flows and sediments and physical disturbance of benthic habitats, which affect the whole food web and other uses. By extracting large quantities of sand to protect the population against large-scale flooding, the Netherlands faces the challenge to attune to associated ecological and social effects. The objective of this project is to ease this dilemma and to give recommendations for an ecosystem-based large-scale sand extraction approach in the Dutch North Sea, which will also inform and guide stakeholders in sand extraction worldwide.