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The present study is a reasonable step on quantitative approaches of water management and advancement of groundwater potential for watershed development of the Ukhma River Basin with the help of remote sensing and GIS techniques. The Ukhma River is one of the significant NW (north-west) flowing tributaries of the Tons River in Central India occupying a 745 sq km area within the Kaimur and Rewa Group of rocks in the Son valley sector. It originates from Ledari Village and joins the Tons River near Deokhar village, Satna District, Madhya Pradesh, Central India. In the present study variations in NDVI and NDWI of the Ukhma River Basin has been measured significantly from 2006-2019. The NDVI and NDWI provide turbidity estimations of the basin's vegetation cover and water resources. The change in NDVI and NDWI detection from 2006-2019 indicates that the area susceptible to erosivity increases the surface runoff reduces the infiltration rate.

In this study, we report for the first time, the occurrence of pothole features and the processes of their development on the bedrocks of Ghaghghar River, Son valley, India. Pothole geometries were identified and measured from the middle reaches of Ghaghghar River, where it is flowing exclusively over the Rohtas limestone (a Meso-Proterozoic age) of Vindhyan Supergroup, near to the Gurma village. On the basis of field survey and remote sensing study, it has been ascertained that potholes developed in the river bed were only related to local geological and geomorphological conditions of a stream. They are mainly developed due to abrupt slope change along the river course and usually associated with intersect fractures, joints, and veins in the bedrock. The knick point of the river profile also confirms the abrupt slope change of the river in Gurma region. The river changes its course from E-W to N-S due to Markundi fault (ENE-WSW) occurring in the study area and causes the tectonic disturbances to support the development of potholes. The formations of potholes on bedrock of Ghaghghar River were generally governed by abrasion of rock fragments during high-flow regime. The geometrical dimensions of the potholes are controlled by the joints, fractures, and veins developed in bedrock of the river. The veins are typically calcitic in nature and the orientations of long axis of potholes are analogous to the trend direction of the vein. The collapse bedrocks suggest that a pothole can be formed within a short period, but cannot be fully developed and maintained for a long time in a strong incision of riverbed.

The present study helps to understand the relation between the different morphometric parameters to delineate the drainage characteristics of the Ghaghghar River Basin (GRB), Son Valley, India. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data were used to prepare the Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Aspect, Drainage, and Slope maps by using ArcGIS 10 software. The Ghaghghar River is third-order stream that exhibits dendritic to sub-dendritic pattern. The trails drainage patterns are also observed in some areas of the basin which may be due to the effect of regional tectonics. The mean bifurcation ratio is 5.1 showing normal basin which is somehow controlled by structural disturbances. High bifurcation ratio (>10) determines that the region is subjected to strong structural control on the drainage. Drainage density (0.36) shows very coarse drainage texture also having positive correlation with stream frequency. The elongation ratio is 0.64 along with circulatory ratio (0.6) shows elongated nature of the basin. The low values of drainage density and stream frequency imply that surface run-off is not quickly removed from the basin, making it susceptible to flooding and gully have very little effect on the extent to which the surface has been lowered by agents of denudation.

Small rivers commonly drain in a few lithologies making their sediments as a good candidate for investigating provenance and weathering environments. We investigated spatial variation in compositional changes in the sediments of a modern river (Khurar River) from its source to sink for 35 km in Khajuraho area, Madhya Pradesh, India. The Khurar River in its entire course is surrounded by the Bundelkhand granitic complex that provides uniform source to the sediments. The possible physical and chemical controls on the bed-load sediments i.e. grain-size, mineralogy, geochemistry and their climatic control are investigated in detail here. Bed- load sediments of the Khurar River are very coarse to coarse sand-size ranging from –0.63 to 0.80 phi and they are devoid of fine sediments such as clay. The mineralogy of the sediments suggests that they are arkosic in composition. The spatial variation in the chemical composition of the sediments is negligible in the river basin from source to sink in the very coarse to coarse sand size range. The sediments are rich in SiO2 (≤82.93) and Al2O3 (≤11.03 wt %) and they have lower values of TiO2 (≤0.27), Fe2O3 (≤1.49), CaO (≤1.12), MgO (≤0.77), K2O (≤5.25) and Na2O (≤3.48 wt %). The trace elements such as Cr (≤66), Co (≤8), Cu (≤19) and Ni (≤12 ppm) have lower values than UCC; but the Pb (≤21) and Rb (≤142 ppm) have higher values than UCC. Lower concentrations of transition elements, such as V, Ni and Cr imply enrichment of felsic minerals in these sediments, a feature also confirmed by the mineralogical study. The high Zn content at some stations suggests anthropogenic contamination in the sediments. A-CN-K ternary plot suggests total alteration of plagioclase resulting in more removal of CaO and Na2O due to continuous weathering in the catchment area. Also, in this plot, sediments lie near to the albite concentration above the anorthite-albite line with gradual depletion in anorthite indicating that they are the weathering products of albite-enriched parent material. The A-CNK-FM ternary plot shows that all the samples plot close to the feldspar apex indicating higher abundance of feldspars. Further, the CIA (54 to 57), PIA (58 to 64) and CIW (70 to 78) values of the sediment samples suggest low to intermediate weathering environment. Chondrite-normalized pattern of REE (Rare earth elements) exhibits depletion of HREE with weak positive Eu anomaly suggesting low fractionation of the plagioclase feldspar. Thus, the major, trace and rare earth elements geochemistry of the bed-load sediments from the Khurar River suggest that they are derived from the weathering of felsic rocks and the original signatures of the granitic provenance remain there even after weathering under sub-humid climatic conditions in the river basin.

The 8.5 m thick, 1.4 km long and 0.35 km wide, ESE–WNW oriented cliff section (N 23°31′32″ E 68°41′00″) exposed across Harudi–Baranda road is extensively studied for its facies characteristics and based on that depositional environments of the middle Eocene (Lutetian) Harudi Formation are deciphered in the present study. Two cycles of grey mudstone alongwith nodular limestone–coquina limestone-gypsiferous mudstone facies in the lower part of the succession suggest sedimentation in coastal quiet-water lagoonal to tidal flat environments, while glauconitic shale, bioclastic packstone and gypsiferous foraminiferal packstone facies in the upper part suggest sedimentation on middle- to inner-shelf and tidal flat depositional environments. In all, three shallowing upward cycles have been identified in the studied outcrops and based on that lagoonal-middle shelf-inner shelf-tidal flat depositional environments are suggested for the middle Eocene Harudi Formation.

Floodplains are flat areas lining both sides of most rivers. They are commonly inundated during high flood events and are important sites of biodiversity and human occupation and cultivation. Big city centers such as Kanpur, Allahabad, Mirzapur and Varanasi are situated on the bank of the Ganga river in central Ganga plain, India. Cliffed embankments occur on the left side of the Ganga river around the village of Jhusi, Allahabad district and Adalpura, Mirzapur district, and on the right side around the town of Jajmau, Kanpur district, around the village of Sirsa, Allahabad district, around the town of Ramnagar, Varanasi district and the village of Tanda, Chandauli district. These cliff sections were studied to determine facies types and grain-size variations along and across the cliff sections in order to elucidate the mechanism of particle transportation and sedimentation on the floodplains. It was found that the majority of the facies are composed of extremely silty and very silty slightly sandy mud, and extremely silty and very silty sandy mud, a few consisting of slightly clayey silt. Both groundwater horizons and intercalated pedogenic calcretes in the muddy facies suggest pedogenesis under arid to semiarid climatic conditions during their development. Grain-size analyses show that mean particle size ranges from 4.23–6.53 phi (coarse to fine silt). Sorting (standard deviation) shows a range of 1.57–2.94 phi, indicating that all the samples are poorly to very poorly sorted. Skewness ranges from 0.09–0.88 (near-symmetrical to very fine skewed). Kurtosis varies from 0.75–1.54, with a few exceptions indicating mesokurtic to very leptokurtic size distributions. Plots of mean grain size vs. sorting suggest that sedimentation took place in a quiet fluvial environment in the course of numerous discharge episodes. Channel and floodplain deposits of the Ganga river are clearly distinguished in these plots. Furthermore, a plot of the coarsest percentile against the median diameter (C-M diagram) suggests that the sediments were transported in graded to uniform suspension.

Texture (grain size) is one of the many parameters, which is used in determining depositional environments of sediments and sedimentary rocks. In the present investigation, texture was analysed from sixteen stations in the Khurar River, Madhya Pradesh, India. Here, grain size analysis was carried out employing mechanical sieving method using a sonic shaker. Frequency and cumulative frequency curves were prepared from the grain size data on centimetre and arithmetic probability papers, respectively. The phi values were determined and used to calculate the statistical parameters such as mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis. It is found that the mean size value varies from-0.63to 0.80 with a graphic mean distribution ranging from -0.27 to 0.40 ϕ, indicating that the size of the river sand is very coarse to coarse-grained. The standard deviation (sorting) shows a range of 0 .69 to 1.65 ϕ. The skewness values of the sediment samples range from 0.19 to 0.29 ϕ, thus, indicating the presence of fine fraction to near-symmetrical fraction in the population. The kurtosis varies between 1.03 and 1.09 ϕ, indicating that 25% of the samples are leptokurtic, 6.25% are very leptokurtic, 50% are mesokurtic and 12.5% are platykurtic. The platykurtic nature in few cases suggests mixing of sediments from two sources. Bivariate plots prepared combining various textural parameters were used to interpret their behaviour in the river sediments. C-M plot was also prepared to understand the dominant mode of sediments transportation in the Khurar River. In this river, all the sediments are dominantly characterized by the rolling process of transportation. This study reveals that sorting varies from poorly sorted to moderately well sorted in the course of the river may be because of dominance of winnowing and selective sorting in the lower reaches of the river.

Textural (grain size) analysis is one of the parameter that helps in determining sedimentary environment. In the present investigation, texture was analysed from sixteen stations in the Khurar River, Madhya Pradesh. Grain size analysis was carried out employing mechanical sieving method using a sonic shaker. Frequency and cumulative frequency curves were prepared from the grain size data on centimetre and arithmetic probability papers, respectively. The phi values were determined and used to calculate the statistical parameters such as mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis. It is found that the mean value varies from -0.63 to 0.80 with a graphic mean distribution ranging from -0.27 to 0.40 φ, indicating that the size of the river sand is very coarse- to coarse-grained. The standard deviation (sorting) shows a range of 0.69 to 1.65 φ, while the skewness values of the sediment samples range from 0.19 to 0.29 φ, thus indicating the presence of fine fraction to near-symmetrical fraction in the population. The kurtosis varies between 1.03 and 1.09 φ, indicating that 25% of the samples are leptokurtic, 6.25% are very leptokurtic, 50% are mesokurtic and 12.5% are platykurtic. The platykurtic nature in few cases suggests mixing of the sediments from two sources. Bivariate plots prepared combing different textural parameters were used to interpret their behaviour in the river sediments. C-M plot was also prepared to understand the dominant mode of transportation in the Khurar River sediments. In this river all the sediments are dominantly characterized by the rolling process of deposition. This study reveals that sorting varies from poorly sorted to moderately well sorted from upstream to downstream part of the river may be because of dominance of winnowing and selective sorting in the lower reaches of the river.