Even desert city Dubai imports its sand

The global construction boom has created huge demand for sand. With a global building boom and the arrival of hydraulic fracturing technology for oil and gas in the United States, the demand for sand has been skyrocketing. In 2014, 196 million tons of sand and its bigger counterpart gravel were mined around the world, according to the US Geological Survey.
The overall sand and gravel market was valued at $8.3bn in the US last year and £1.7bn ($2.5bn) in the UK in 2013.Global demand for sand is expected to rise 5.5% a year through 2018.