Read a report that said we move more sediment than all the world's rivers combined

I was looking at some old industry data from the Corps of Engineers and saw a stat that the global dredging fleet moves about 10 billion cubic meters of material a year. That's more than the total sediment load carried by all natural rivers on Earth, which blew my mind. Did anyone else know this, or have you seen other wild numbers about the scale of what we do?

4 comments

4 Comments

kai4451mo ago

Wait, 10 billion cubic meters a year?

nguyen.lily1mo ago

Yeah, that's a real number.

robins831mo ago

That stat is like seeing how much we've paved over...

margareto265d ago

But rivers have been moving that stuff for millions of years. We're just catching up on port maintenance and flood control in a single century.