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and cover increase diversity usually decreases. Therefore, a balance needs to be established <br />between the criteria which provides optimum value for the postmining land use and that which <br />provides adequate ecological resiliency. <br />When selecting appropriate diversity criteria one must consider the nature of the site and the ability <br />of species and life forms to colonize from adjacent sites. Greater emphasis should be placed on <br />diversity for large unbroken tracts of land than for smaller sites with extensive influence from <br />undisturbed native vegetation. Therefore, diversity standards should be greater on large <br />concentrated disturbances from strip mined lands than for smaller diffuse disturbances from linear <br />features such as light use roads. <br />The most appropriate approach to developing revegetation criteria is the combined use of reference <br />areas and data on site potentials. Some of the information relating to the vegetative communities <br />are available from studies of reference areas. The remaining data have been collected from the <br />mine permit site as a whole. Reference areas have also been established in areas where <br />disturbance has been less prevalent. Complimentary information has been produced from regional <br />data. Table V -14 compares baseline samples of various plant communities to the NRCS (p.k.a. <br />SCS) Range Site descriptions. <br />V.J.2 Reveaetation Success Criteria Historic, current, and probable future land use all involve <br />the use of the permit area as sheep and wildlife habitat winter range. As a result, revegetated sites <br />must not only meet those specifications set forth by the DRMS, but must compliment the values of <br />Permit Renewal RN -6 (04/2014) V -54 <br />