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14 <br />Colorado to reduce overland flow, increase infiltration, and increase <br />available soil moisture for vegetation establishment and growth. <br />However, any generalizations about the similarities of surface <br />hydrology or regraded coal mined land from state to state, between areas <br />within a mining region, or even between sites within a mine are risky <br />due to critical site specificity. Schafer (1974) observed large varia- <br />tions in soil properties on regraded land at a mine near Colstrip, <br />Montana, since the different soil properties are influenced by variations <br />in mining and reclamation techniques. Yet, experimental evidence by <br />Burton et al. (1978) suggests that spoils derived from areas within a <br />reasonably homogeneous formation exhibit similar surficial hydrologic <br />characteristics if the mining techniques influencing the texture and bulk <br />density of the spoils are similar. <br />Efforts for the past 20 or 30 years to make quantified predictions <br />• of soil loss from land, and to identify and isolate the factors involved <br />in soil erosion to facilitate selecting land use practices which result <br />in soil loss within an acceptable range, have led to the development of <br />the Universal Soil Loss Equation ('dischmeier, 1959; 'dilliams and Berndt, <br />1972; Hudson, 1473; Wischmeier, 1976; King, 1977; Osborn et al., 1977). <br />The equation was originally developed for application on cropland east <br />of the Rocky Mountains but recent work has expanded the potential use to <br />•estimating soil loss from land disturbed by surface mining in the western <br />United States. The soil .loss equation is: <br />R=RxKxLxSxCxP <br />where: <br />A is the soil loss per unit area <br />• <br />