Designing Protective Ecotones to Reduce Acoustic Load on the Railway Lines

According to the results of the analysis of domestic and foreign literary sources, one of the most innovative ways of ensuring the stability of anthropogenically modified ecosystems is proposed, that is the creation of a system of protective type ecotones, which will allow providing ecological safety on the railways using exclusively natural environmental restoration mechanisms. On the experimental areas, we have described the taxonomic structure of forestry groups and phytocoenotic activity of species in forest grouping. We have also calculated the closeness, viability of the tree-stands, and also the projective shelter. To determine the noise effect, the noise-permeability of forest strips and the scattering of sound-currents from planting action have been analyzed. Based on research and calculations, a zone of sound shadow is determined depending on the size of the obstacle and the length of the sound wave. The acoustic effect of reducing the sound level is determined by such factors as bandwidth, dendrological composition, and design of plantations. The one-factor dispersion analysis allowed confirming that the investigated sections of the tracks of Lviv Railways differ significantly from each other according to these data. The results of the research were also subject to correlation analysis. The coefficients of pair correlation of structural indices of protective type ecotones were calculated with reduction of acoustic load on sections of the tracks of Lviv Railways. Therefore, the interrelation with the distance, the horizontal closure of the tree canopy, the distance between the trees, the height of the shaft and the crown density were reliably established. On this basis, the multiplicity regression equation for complex estimation of acoustic load reduction and prediction of noise reduction with specified parameters of protective type ecotones were calculated.