Early in the AUII, it was widely assumed that Alabama had the land resources needed to support expanded irrigation. To confirm this, Auburn researchers used soil characteristics and slope to determine land suitability for irrigation.  The results of this analysis indicated about 6 million acres of land were highly suitable for irrigation and an additional 7 million acres were deemed suitable for irrigation.

Despite its strong potential, irrigation use was still extremely limited at the time of the previously mentioned analysis (1997). Alabama had 79,000 acres under irrigation, compared with roughly 1.5 million acres being irrigated in Georgia. This meant that less than 10 percent of Alabama’s farmland was irrigated, while Georgia was irrigating approximately half of its farmland. The analysis confirmed that limited irrigation in Alabama was not due to a lack of suitable land, but to other economic, institutional, and practical barriers.