Alabama Landscapes
Rivers and Lakes
Alabama has 77,242 miles of river and stream channels and ranks 7th in
the nation. It also has 3,627,600 acres of wetland and 563,000 acres of ponds,
lakes, and reservoirs.
River Systems
Alabama is drained by 12 major rivers and their tributaries (Figure RL1).
Figure RL1. Major rivers of Alabama (Cartographic Research Laboratory, Dept. of Geography, University of Alabama)
The area drained by a major river and its tributaries is called a
drainage
basin. Thus, the amount of water that a particular river may carry is
defined by the size of its river basin and the amount of rainfall in
that basin. That information can be used to determine the amount of
river water available for agricultural or other uses and to predict
flooding.
Figure RL2. Drainage basins in Alabama. (Cartographic Research Laboratory, Dept. of Geography, University of Alabama)