Beach Sand: The Most Vital Rare Earth Mineral
In 2025, any serious conversation about the future of our coastlines begins with two undeniable realities.
The first is this: across much of the developed world, nature’s reliable supply of sand to beaches has been severed by centuries of damming, river engineering, urbanization, and hardened shores.
That leads directly to the next: because we broke nature’s supply chain, we’ve inherited the full-time responsibility of becoming the supplier. The grown-up truth is simple: pristine, self-sustaining beaches aren’t coming back anytime soon.
This isn’t easy for surfers or environmentalists to accept. We’ve long imagined our coastlines as wild places, and our pursuit as engaging with the untamed wild. We tell ourselves we’re respecting nature by leaving it alone. But denial isn’t a strategy. The wilderness cycle along our shores was interrupted long ago, and it won’t restore itself.
What’s at stake now isn’t untouched wilderness. It’s the vitality and resilience of the ecosystems that remain, and the human communities that depend on them.
True conservation today means defending and repairing natural systems like beaches and dunes: systems that still underpin everything we value along the coast. It means letting nature do its work, but giving it the help it needs in a landscape we’ve already reshaped. Anything less isn’t environmentalism. It’s surrender.
Where We Stand
More than 75 percent of California’s coastline is now engineered. Sand is either being nourished or held in place just to survive. On the East Coast, that number is even higher. Virtually all of New Jersey, New York, the Carolinas, and Florida are fronted by hardened inlets, groins, jetties, and artificial dunes.
Yet despite these conditions, most coastal states and cities treat beach maintenance as an afterthought. Even so, the limited investments they do make continue to deliver massive returns.
Beaches aren’t just the cultural spine of our coasts. They are the single largest sector of the recreational economy in the U.S. That holds true abroad as well. Domestically, beaches generate over $36 billion in tax revenue each year. And yet, over the past century, the federal government has spent only $10 billion in total on beach nourishment.
You won’t find a better return on investment anywhere.
Yes, it’s tough to let go of the idea that beaches are pristine and self-sustaining. But preserving them—ecologically, spiritually, and economically—makes sense on every level. Around the world, smart cities and nations are waking up to that reality. And increasingly, the central issue is this: where will we find enough suitable sand?
In places like Newport Beach, the Santa Ana River once fed the coast with sediment. Today, it’s so heavily dammed and hardened that only about 8 percent of its outflow is usable sand. The rest is fine silt—of no use for beach building.
New Jersey’s coastline is littered with jetties. (And occasionally gems.) Photo: Mike Nelson
Sand Isn’t Just Sand
When properly sourced and placed, beach sand is the most effective, affordable way to sustain coastlines. It supports habitat, filters water, stores carbon, and provides the literal foundation for recreation, tourism, and real estate. But the supply of good-quality sand is dwindling.
“Wait, how is that possible? What about the Sahara?”
Don’t worry, I’ve asked the same question for you. Desert sand and beach sand are very different beasts. Desert grains are too round, too smooth, and too polished by wind. They don’t interlock the way more angular beach sand does. Put desert sand on a beach, and it will either blow away or behave like powdered coffee creamer in the surf. So yeah, that rules out a good chunk or what you’d think of as possibilities.
The other problem is not all beach sand is interchangeable. Every beach has its own fingerprint with a unique blend of grain size, shape, color, and mineral composition. One beach might be mostly quartz, another feldspar or volcanic glass, another full of shell fragments. But all these differences, even though subtle, can affect how sand behaves under wave energy, how it compacts, and how long it stays in place.
Waikiki learned this lesson the hard way. In the 1960s, after decades of shoreline hardening, Hawaii began importing sand from Manhattan Beach, California. The water turned cloudy, nearshore fish vanished, and the foreign sand wouldn’t hold. Locals called it out. Hawaii adapted. Today, it only sources sand from within the islands—but those reserves are limited, and increasingly contested.
The same is true elsewhere. And beach towns aren’t the only ones looking.
Waikiki, circa 1954, with sand from Manhattan Beach. Photo: Dick Metz/SHACC
The Global Sand Race
The construction industry is also hungry for high-quality sand. Globally, we now extract between 40 and 50 billion tons of sand and gravel each year, second only to water. The gritty, angular grains of river, lake, and ocean sand that bond together are essential for concrete, asphalt, and mortar. And whether we’re talking Abu Dhabi skyscrapers or Chinese highways, demand is skyrocketing.
That demand has created shortages, black markets, and even an environmental crises. In parts of Asia and Africa, the best sand is illegally being stripped from rivers, beaches, and seabeds. In some places, sand mafias control supply chains. That’s how precious this stuff is.
But here’s the issue: when sand leaves a littoral cell (it’s coastal home) and finds a new home miles offshore or in some canyon, theoretically, it’s still retrievable. But once sand is poured into concrete, mortar, or pavement, it leaves our stem forever.
That leaves less for beaches and raises the stakes for everyone trying to protect them.
Borrow Sites, Dredging Gaps, and Global Disparity
Finding suitable sand is just the first step. Extracting it requires access, permits, vessels, and infrastructure. In the U.S., our offshore dredging fleet is small and aging, and antiquated laws like The Jones Act prevent us from using the state-of-the-art equipment. The best American machines can only reach down about 100 feet. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, home to the most advanced dredgers in the world, their able to extract sand from depths of 400 feet.
That technological gap matters, especially as shallow, nearshore borrow sites become scarcer. The future of coastal resilience may hinge not just on funding, but on equipment and innovation.
Puerto Escondido, Mexico loves sand. Photo: Jeremiah Klein
The Dutch Model
No country has done more to understand and manage sand than the Netherlands. With 26 percent of their country sitting below sea level, including their three largest economic hubs, they’ve had no choice but to master the boundary between land and sea.
Their legacy stretches back 2,000 years, from early mounds and embankments to monumental projects like the 20-mile Zuiderzee dam, which turned a saltwater inlet into a freshwater lake. After a devastating flood in 1953 killed over 1,800 people, they launched a new era of flood control, including automatic surge barriers at Rotterdam.
In 1990, the Dutch codified a national shoreline policy called the Basiskustlijnbeleid, or BKL. It set a clear goal: the coastline must not retreat inland of its 1990 position. If erosion passes that line, the area is replenished, typically within one to three years.
This policy isn’t symbolic. It’s written into Dutch water law and backed by long-term funding. Since its adoption, more than 300 sand nourishment projects have been completed. With accessible borrow sites and unmatched dredging capability, the Netherlands now extracts and places more than 15 million cubic yards of sand per year, which makes them global leaders in sustainable coastal management.
Sand Motor Project, Netherlands. Note both the width of the beach and the folks enjoying the sand.