MonSand: Monitoring Illegal Sand Mining

CHALLENGE: 

Marine sand is the most extracted "solid" material on Earth, and 50 billion tons of marine sand is used every year worldwide. Its usage is deeply ingrained in humanity's everyday life, ranging from making building materials for infrastructure projects, developing diverse commodities to be consumed everyday, to maintaining livelihoods and marine ecosystems. (UNEP. 2022). As it is the case with other mineral resources, marine sand is notorious for being illegally extracted from seabeds, riverbeds, lakes, and deltas, that affect the lives of people and wildlife living nearby.

The below table shows in detail the environmental impacts of sand mining:

Image Source:UNEP

Illegal sand mining is a problem that is affecting the communities globally.To solve this problem efforts need to be taken hand in hand by the government as well as by the citizens.My innovative solution records the data of the sand mining area activities and provide a proof to the respective authorities to take the remedial steps for the welfare of the whole ecosystem as together.

SOLUTION: The project is about monitoring and detecting illegal sand mining activities at various water bodies, especially in the oceans and river banks. By using Wio Terminal, SenseCAP K1100 Kit, and Grove Lora E5, 'MonSand' device is able to capture the environmental and surrounding data of illegal sand mining sites, after which the collected data is sent to Helium Console, and then analyzed monitoring outcomes will be directly shown on Google Sheets. 

Illegal Sand Mining Detection by Vision AI MonSand can take a photo of illegal sand mining:  And turn it into this:

Excavator class detected       Dump Truck class detected 

Canoe class detected 

Illegal Sand Mining Detection by Audio Volume

MonSand can take an audio of illegal sand mining machines operating:

mic volume values as plotted in serial monitor

And turn it into this:  

output as shown in serial monitor. 

Send Data to Google Sheets through Helium LoRa

After the audio and sound inferences are done, MonSand uses the power of Helium to send the data ("machine" or "no machine") to Google Sheets

Notify government & authorities of illegal mining via SMS 

Send SMS from Google Sheets

RESULTS When certain illegal activities are detected, SMS will be sent to relevant authorities, either government agencies or NGOs, to go to the sand mining sites in concern and tackle the problems on-site, in real-time. 

My solution is a novel innovative first step to stop the illegal sand mining which is affecting the lives of the people, their environment surrounding them.

Due to uncontrollable sand mining people living near costal area are loosing their homes due to land slides which are caused by the erosions, floods.This problem is prominent in third world countries where resources are limited, illegal sand mining problem causes more economic constraints(as to the fisheries) and disturbs the biodiversity of the area.

I am  a 15 year innovator  who loves tinkering.I came to know about illegal sand mining from my grandfather who is a civil engineer in India.And i thought of trying to find a solution which can be used on a post near the coastal areas as well as can be used on drones for the efficient monitoring and recording of data.

The solution will be helpful to the communities as they will have the proof and the orderly messages to the authorities.

I have made a prototype which i am looking forward to testing it.

As a young innovator i would love to collaborate with the like minded individuals who are bringing up their best to serve the communities with their innovative inventions.

I am applying to Solve to collaborate with the the people who can use my prototype and help me implement this effective solution in the field which will be beneficial for the climate, biodiversity and communities of the area.