Alabama River Basin Cooperative Study Within Alabama (Volume I)

Excerpts from the report: The Alabama River Basin comprises approximately 22,750 square miles extending from East Tennessee and Northwest Georgia diagonally across Alabama in a southwesterly direction to the confluence of the Alabama River with the Tombigbee River approximately 45 miles north of Mobile. There has been considerable development of the land and water resources in the upstream portion of the basin in Tennessee and Georgia through ongoing programs and this portion of the basin is not included in the study. However, the effects of waterflow from this portion of the basin have been considered. The basin is located primarily in the Southern Piedmont, Southern Coastal Plains, and the Alabama-Mississippi Blackland Prairies Land Resource Areas. The headwaters of the basin extend into the Southern Appalachian Ridges and Valleys and Sand Mountain Land Resource Areas. The 1966-67 Conservation Needs Inventory indicates that approximately 68 percent of the land area is forest land and 24 percent is distributed equally between cropland and pasture. Slightly more than 8 percent of the basin land area is being used for non-agricultural purposes. The broad purposes of this study were (1) to inventory land and water resources, (2) to project future resource needs, (3) to provide basic data for planning and development, (4) to identify resource development alternatives, and (5) to identify problems and development opportunities for detailed study.