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13 <br />• undisturbed watershed. Where a good vegetative cover was established <br />on the regraded land, runoff was 65 percent less than the runoff of the <br />nonvegetated regraded land, and there was a reduction of peak flow and <br />increased duration of runoff from summer thunderstorms. <br />In the semiarid west, the limiting factor for establishment of a <br />vegetative cover on the regraded mined land often is adequate soil <br />moisture. Surface manipulations which decrease the flow rate of water <br />over the surface of the soil may increase infiltration and increase <br />available soil moisture for plant establishment and growth as well as <br />temporarily reducing the quantity of overland flow with its associated <br />sheet and rill erosion. Hodder (1975, 1977) studied various surface <br />manipulations in southeastern Montana, including Chiseling to relieve <br />• compaction, large dozer basins, and gouging a series of depressions <br />approximately 10 inches deep, 18 inches across, and 25 inches long. <br />1 Gouging, which is applicable on gently sloping or moderately steep slopes, <br />reduced moisture stress days significantly and resulted in greater plant <br />~ survival than chiseling or dozer basins. <br />Most erosion from water in southeast Montana occurs from the sudden <br />I melting of late snows with early spring rainfall on frozen ground or with <br />brief intense summer thunderstorms (Hodder, 1975). Berg (1975) envisioned <br />potential erosion problems on topsoiled spoils in northwest Colorado when <br />he noticed rill erosion caused by overland flow over frozen soil on summer <br />followed lands in the area. Berg believes one of the major reclamation <br />I problems in Colorado is to control erosion on recently topsoiled areas <br />where slow growing species are seeded or planted. Probably some of the <br />I • surface manipulations described by Hodder (1977) could be employed in <br />