Morphometric analysis, bedload sediments, and weathering intensity in the Khurar River Basin, central India

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to investigate the regional topography and drainage dynamics of the Khurar River, central India, along with the textural, mineralogical, and geochemical behaviour of the bedload sediments. The morphometric analysis was carried out using SRTM data with the help of ArcGIS 10 software. The area of the basin is 309.57 km 2 with its perimeter 83.24 km and maximum length 32.06 km. Drainage patterns are dendritic to subdendritic with stream orders ranging from first to third order. Drainage density is 0.34 per km 2 , while the bifurcation ratio is 4.5 for the river. The Khurar River Basin is an elongated basin of small size showing ENE-WSW trend analogous to the Son lineament. This basin might have originated during the Quaternary Period as a result of major tectonic activities in the region. The textural analysis indicates that the samples are bimodal to polymodal in nature ranging from very coarse to coarse grained and poorly to moderately well sorted in all the geomorphic units. The skewness value suggests coarse to fine-skewed values, while kurtosis value shows platykurtic to very leptokurtic nature of the sediments. The quartz, microcline, and albite are the chief minerals in the sediment samples with negligible variation from source to confluence of the river. The major oxide geochemistry of the sediments indicate that the dominant oxide is SiO 2 followed by Al 2 O 3 and other oxides that suggests felsic-dominated source for the sediments. The chemical index of alteration (CIA), plagioclase index of alteration (PIA), chemical index of weathering (CIW), weathering index of Parker (WIP), Vogt S. residual index (V), Ruxton ratio (R), and silica-titania index (STI) reveal moderate weathering conditions and immature nature of the sediments in the basin. These suggest that the sediments experienced a moderate amount of weathering in the river catchment under subhumid climatic conditions.

Drainage network characteristics of the Ghaghghar River Basin (GRB), Son Valley, India

“…The mean values of stream length ratio for the GRB is 0.79 (ranging from 1.28 for third/second order to 0.30 for second/first order). Increase in the stream length ratio from lower to higher orders successively reveals geomorphic maturity of the basin (Kanhaiya et al, 2018;Rai et al, 2018;Thomas et al, 2010).…”

“…The low value of stream frequency (Fs) indicates permeable subsoil and gentler gradient of the catchment area (Kanhaiya et al, 2018;Rai et al, 2018;Thomas et al, 2010)…”

“…Morphometry is the measurement and mathematical analysis of the formation of the earth's surface, shape, and dimension of its landforms. Morphometric studies involve area, altitude, shape, size, slope, and profiles of watershed (Kanhaiya, Singh, Singh, Mittal, & Srivastava, 2018;Rai, Chandel, Mishra, & Singh, 2018;Singh & Kanhaiya, 2015;Sreedevi, Subrahmanyam, & Ahmed, 2004, 2005Thomas, Joseph, & Thrivikramaji, 2010). Morphometric analysis could be used for prioritization of sub-watersheds by studying different linear and aerial parameters of the watershed (Biswas et al, 1999).…”

“…Morphometric appraisal explains an essential hydrological finding all together to anticipate surmised conduct of a watershed assuming accurately combined with geomorphology and geography (Esper Angillieri, 2008). A number of researchers have carried out morphometric analysis of various river basins of India by using remote-sensing and GIS techniques in recent decades (Kanhaiya et al, 2018;Nag, 1998;Nag & Chakraborty, 2003Rai at al., 2014;Magesh and Chandrasekar, 2014;Singh & Kanhaiya, 2015;Prakash et al, 2016Prakash et al, , 2017Singh et al, 2018;Sreedevi et al, 2004Sreedevi et al, , 2005Thomas et al, 2010).…”

Morphometric analysis using SRTM and GIS in synergy with depiction: a case study of the Karmanasa River basin, North central India

“…Digital elevation model (DEM) is the dataset for various studies that include morphometric, neo-tectonic and hydrologic studies (Jensen 1991;Patel et al 2016;Wise 2000;Singh and Kanhaiya 2015;Prakash et al 2017a, b, c;Kanhaiya et al 2018). Extracting drainage parameters from DEM is proficient, accurate and efficient (Moore et al 1991).…”