The company has paid great attention to Qinghai-Tibet Railway construction during the early period when three world-wide problems confronted in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau—overhears frozen earth, fragile ecological system, frigid weather and lack of oxygen, which require more production safety, higher project quality and better environmental protection. We have put a lot of effort and pioneered variety of research subjects in order to promote science and technological level all-around. In light of the requirements of the appraisal, a guideline for the construction of the project is worked out, i.e., “giving priority to prevention and protection and attaching equal importance to both development and protection.” The result of the appraisal of the ecological environment is used to guide the designing and construction of the railway line and its environmental management. A supervisory system for environmental protection is introduced for the first time.

(1) Frozen Earth and Plateau Vegetation Protection. In order to protect the ecological environment along the railway line, all units involved in the construction have planned rationally including pavement, construction side, taking and discharging soil place and camp side, strictly improving the land and structure for temporary use, trying to avoid building road and houses on the pavement and restricting the scope of activities of workers and vehicles. Attention has been paid to the protection and regeneration of ground vegetation. The turf has been preserved and replanted in other places section by section and moved back to cover the slopes of the roadbeds, so as to minimize the loss of ground vegetation. Efforts have been intensified to protect and recover the vegetation on the high-cold land through a host of experiments and long time testing including successful recovery and construction of the grassland vegetation and cold meadow in plateau and beside the roadbed in the areas over 4,500m altitude of Tuotuo River, Anduo and Dangxiong, which created a good precedent of artificial vegetation on the plateau roadbeds.
(2) Wild Animals Protection. Nearly 60 kilometers of special passageways for migrating wildlife were established so that the normal life of these animals would be protected as far as possible. The work of the railway building stopped during the migrating season of the Tibetan antelopes.
(3) Wetland and Water Resource Protection. To prevent any adverse impact on the ecological functions of the origin areas of rivers and to protect ecological environment of the wetlands, a special plan of project construction is carried out. Rubbish and waste are forbidden from piling up near the rivers and water channels. Wastewater and domestic sewage are strictly prohibited from draining into the river, which can be used for forestation and keeping down of the dust after precipitation process.
(4) Industrial and Domestic Waste Treatment. Solid waste from construction sites and trash from camp sites have been sorted out and bury on the spot if possible, waste and trash that cannot be degraded have been moved to the dump downhill for batch treatment.
(5) Soil Erosion Prevention and Control. Ground surface areas of the disturbance is strictly controlled, industrial waste have been erected first and then have been dumped and protective construction have been put into operation simultaneously with the main part of the project.