Sound barrier built on high-speed rail line to protect bird habitat

Special noise barriers have been built around a section of the newly-opened Jiangmen-Zhanjiang high-speed railway to protect a habitat of more than 30,000 birds, reports Xinhua News Agency.

A train passes through a noise-barrier along the newly-opened Jiangmen-Zhanjiang Railway. The noise barrier was built to avoid disturbing a nearby habitat to over 30,000 birds. [File Photo: VCG]

The habitat, known as the "Bird's Paradise," is a nationally-protected wetland park in Jiangmen, in China's southern province of Guangdong. There is a small island in the reserve that is home to a thick banyan tree forest inhabited by dozens of bird species.

An aerial view of the "Bird's Paradise" in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province. [File Photo: VCG]

The route of the Jiangmen-Zhanjiang high-speed rail line brings trains just 800 meters away from the core area of the habitat. To protect the birds from the passing trains, a two-kilometer section of track has been completely enclosed with a special noise reduction barrier that cost 187 million yuan (28 million U.S. dollars) to build.

After the barrier was built, researchers measured the change in volume in the middle of the "Bird's Paradise" and found that it is so effective that the volume of noise increases by just 0.2 decibels, which means the train noise is effectively muted.

The 355 kilometer long Jiangmen-Zhanjiang high-speed railway opened on July 1.