Effects on birds due to urbanization and potential solutions-a case study in Shenzhen, China

Abstract

Urbanization has been bringing severe impacts on birds as industrial civilization develops. As urban areas rapidly expand, in addition to traditional problems such as industrial pollution and habitat loss, some seemly minor effects attract researchers attention. Common problems among these are noise pollution, light pollution, and bird-building collision. Past studies focus on the effects exerted on birds, but there is a lack of assessments of the real-life application of these findings. Therefore, Shenzhen, a first-tier city in China, is taken as a case to discuss how some of these indirect problems arise, how they affect endemic birds, and solutions that are either potential or have already brought good effects. By making a rough assessment of the citys situation, it is concluded that Shenzhens government and the public have taken many actions to make the city more environmental-friendly, i.e., installing acoustic barriers along highways and planting trees to limit the impact of noise pollution. However, for some newly emerged issues like mitigating bird-building collisions, academic studies have just begun and many improvements can be made. By analyzing these problems and solutions in a specific city, a rough reference for the level of environmental protection in one of the advanced cities in China is made. But more future studies about these problems should be made both regionally and domestically, and ecological effects should be further considered by the local government while making decisions.