Sustaining urbanization while undermining sustainability: the socio-environmental characterization of coastal sand mining in Lagos Nigeria

Sand mining is a global activity that has attracted wide attention due partly to its invaluable positive contributions to development and partly to its negative socio-environmental impacts. While sand mining supports urbanization by providing essential aggregate materials for urban real estate and construction sectors, it however undermines environmental sustainability especially in coastal regions. In spite of this, very sparse research has explained the socio-environmental dimensions of sand mining in Nigerian coastal communities. This study therefore explored the drivers and impacts of sand mining based on the data from a survey of residents in four Lagos sand mining coastal communities. Results showed that sand mining activity is driven by a number of urbanization related factors while sand mining impacts are underlined by a number of sustainability related factors. However, using exploratory analytical techniques we found that four urbanization components described the drivers of sand mining and four sustainability components described the impacts of sand mining in Lagos. The paper concludes on the puzzling dilemma of sand mining that supports thriving urbanization but undermines environmental sustainability in Lagos. The implications of the findings for environmental sustainability in Lagos coastal areas were concisely presented.