Role of neotectonics and climate in development of the Holocene geomorphology and soils of the Gangetic Plains between the Ramganga and Rapti rivers

Geomorphic characterization and diversity of the fluvial systems of the Gangetic Plains

“…The physical study of large tropical rivers has gained enormous importance during the last two decades and a variety of topics have been covered that include fluvial geomorphology and hydrology (Kale et al, 1994;Sinha and Friend, 1994;Sinha and Jain, 1998;Kale, 1999Kale, , 2002Dettinger and Diaz, 2000;Gupta, 2002;Thorne, 2002), sediment budget and catchment processes (Curtis and Douglas, 1993;Oguchi, 1997;Galy et al, 1999;Metivier, 1999;West et al, 2002;Goodbred andKuehl, 1999, 2000;Galy and Lanord, 2001;Goodbred, 2003), geochemistry and biogeochemistry (Han and Liu, 2001;Sarin, 2001), climate change (Srivastava et al, 1994;Mulder and Syvitski, 1996;Cluis and Laberge, 2001), and river management (Gore and Shields, 1995;Sparks, 1995). The geological perspective of such studies has been to develop understanding of the process-form relationships and to use them for interpreting ancient fluvial sequences.…”

Waterlogging and flood hazards vulnerability and risk assessment in Indo Gangetic plain

“…The area of the Indo-Gangetic plains is nearly 13% of the total geographical area of the country, and it produces about 50% of the total food grains to feed 40% of the population of the country (Srivastava et al 1994). Food grain production in India crossed 200 Mt mark in year 1999-2000, in comparison with 50.82 Mt in 1950-1951 In spite of technological advancement in agriculture, large year-to-year variations in production continue, which is related to fluctuations in monsoon at a gross level.…”

Terminal fans and the Ganga plain tectonism: A study of neotectonism and segmentation episodes of the Indo-Gangetic foreland basin, India

“…1) and is characterized by relatively high rate of subsidence and by sedimentation in the form of megafans and weakly to moderately developed soils (Srivastava et al, 1994;Thomas et al, 2002). This region is mainly occupied by the Gandak megafan in the Rapti-Gandak block (Pati et al, 2011b), bounded by the Rapti-II and the Gandak faults from the west and east, respectively, and the interfan region between the Gandak and the Kosi megafans.…”

“…Though the region between the Ghaggar and the Yamuna rivers serves as the drainage divide between the Indus plain in the west and the Ganga plain in the east, in the present study this region has been included in the upper Gangetic plain. The upper Gangetic plain is characterized by incised rivers such as the Yamuna, Ganga, Ghaghara, Rapti and their tributaries and is marked by well developed soils with salt efflorescence and calcrete development (Srivastava et al, 1994;Thomas et al, 2002). This covers about 2,00,000 km 2 area of the foreland basin.…”

“…The modern sedimentation processes and the present geographic settings of the basin are essentially the continuation of those processes and basin systems, with minor modifications (Parkash et al, 1980). Srivastava et al (1994) and Thomas et al (2002) classified the IndoGangetic plains into upper, middle and lower depending upon the rate of sedimentation and subsidence. The upper Gangetic plain is marked by uplands with incised rivers and moderately to well-developed soils with salt efflorescence and calcrete, the middle Gangetic plains is marked by relatively high rate of subsidence and by sedimentation in the form of megafans and with weakly to moderately developed soils, and the lower Gangetic plains is characterized by deltaic sedimentation.…”