But by the time it becomes too expensive to dredge we may have majorly fucked up some ecosystems. The loss in depth of the Mekong means seawater comes in and destroys plants, and sand is also part of the natural ecosystem as described in the article.
>"But by the time it becomes too expensive to dredge we may have majorly fucked up some ecosystems."
I know it may be unpleasant to hear this... But some of us don't actually care. Seriously, somewhere we got "stuck" into thinking that we should (or can) perfectly preserve ecosystems whilst simultaneously advancing our civilization into amazing new levels.
However, if you look at it objectively we've already demolished and transformed huge swathes of the planet anyways without blinking; but now selectively decide to "preserve" some other things. Just look at all the land our cities take up, the roads that cut our landscape, the beaches that are peppered with housing, the rivers we've diverted, the dams we've constructed, the changes we've caused in the evolution of plants and animals, etc. Maybe even imagine how (perhaps horrible) our planet looks at night from outer space due to the lights we've erected all over it instead of letting it be naturally dark as it's been for eons.
