The Piedmont Zone is the least studied part of the Ganga Plain. The northern limit of the Piedmont Zone is defined by the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT) along which the Himalaya is being thrust over the alluvium of the Ganga Plain. Interpretation of satellite imagery, Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) and field data has helped in the identification and mapping of various morphotectonic features in the densely forested and cultivated Piedmont Zone in the Kumaun region of the Uttarakhand state of India. The Piedmont Zone has formed as a result of coalescing alluvial fans, alluvial aprons and talus deposits. The fans have differential morphologies and aggradation processes within a common climatic zone and similar litho-tectonic setting of the catchment area. Morphotectonic analysis reveals that the fan morphologies and aggradation processes in the area are mainly controlled by the ongoing tectonic activities. Such activities along the HFT and transverse faults have controlled the accommodation space by causing differential subsidence of the basin, and aggradation processes by causing channel migration, channel incision and shifting of depocentres. The active tectonic movements have further modified the landscape of the area in the form of tilted alluvial fan, gravel ridges, terraces and uplifted gravels.

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Systematic lithofacies, palaeocurrent, palaeomorphological and palaeohydrological analyses have provided detailed information about a hitherto unstudied river system of the Siwalik foreland basin of the Himalaya. Three distinct lithofacies associations, each representing a specific depositional setting, have been identified and named as ‘Facies Association A’, ‘Facies Association B’ and ‘Facies Association C’. The ‘Facies Association A’ comprises pebbly sandstone, cross-bedded sandstone, ripple-laminated sandy siltstone and bioturbated mudstone lithofacies and represents deposits of a braided channel. The ‘Facies Association B’ comprises cross-bedded sandstone, bioturbated mudstone, fine sandstone–mudstone alternation and lensoid to prismatic sandstone lithofacies and represents deposits of a channel, natural levee, crevasse-splay and flood plain of a meandering stream. The ‘Facies Association C’ comprises mottled siltstone–mudstone heterolith and fine sandstone lithofacies and represents deposits of the upland interfluve region. The braided stream had a maximum depth of 4.15 m, maximum width of 305 m and maximum discharge of 7045 cumec, whereas the meandering stream had a sinuosity of 1.26, maximum depth of 3.71 m, maximum width of 180 m and maximum discharge of 4070 cumec. The area had a regional radial outward flow pattern, but dominantly towards the SSW. However, the braided river had a bimodal flow pattern due to an active basement-high-induced bend along its course. A comparison of the sediment characters and morphological and hydrological parameters of these streams with those of the modern rivers of the Ganga (Gangetic) basin has enabled us to infer that this river system was located in the medial-distal megafan-interfan setting of the basin.

Detailed facies analysis and morphotectonic investigations of the Malin River's alluvial fan in the western Ganga Plain, India, reveal that the morphology of the fan is largely tectonically controlled whereas the sedimentary processes are mainly climatically controlled. The sedimentation occurred in two distinct evolutionary cycles which are separated by a time gap. The older cycle deposited thick gravelly units up to the distal-fan area, whereas the sediment fill of the younger cycle is gavel-dominated in the proximal-fan area, gravel-sand dominated in the middle-fan area and sand-mud dominated in the distal-fan area. The gravels of the older cycle were emplaced by intense sediment gravity flows during periods of strengthened monsoon and steeper regional gradient. During the younger cycle, the proximal to distal parts of the fan were dominated by different sedimentary processes. This was a time of relatively weaker monsoon and gentler regional slopes, when gravels could travel only up to the middle-fan area. The gravels in the proximal-fan area have mainly been deposited by sediment gravity flows and channel processes; in the middle-fan area channel processes, sheetfloods and sediment gravity flows have been the main sedimentary processes; and in the distal-fan area fluvial processes of channel migration and overbank deposition have been the main sedimentary processes.

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