<p>The unscientific land use and anthropogenic activity intensified the environmental challenges in poorly developed soil of the Proterozoic terrain of the Eastern Chhotonagpur plateau fringe region. The main objective of the study is to characterize landforms in relation to fundamental landscape variables such as slope, soil, geology, land use/land cover (LULC), and land degradation, for developing landform-specific sustainable land use planning. The two distinct approaches of landform classification, topographic position index (TPI) and Geomorphon techniques, are used to delineate the landforms in the Kumari river basin. TPI compares the elevation of a point with the mean elevation of its surroundings, while Geomorphon focuses on the patterns formed by the angles between a focal point and its surroundings. To effectively extract the landforms, ten different scales of neighbourhood cell sizes are applied. Gentle slope category is the prominent slope position identified in the TPI-based slope position classification technique, while plains, shallow valleys, small hills, and open slopes, accounting for 84.82% of the total study area, are the prevalent landforms in the TPI-based landform classification approach. Conversely, the Geomorphon-based prevalent landforms in the area are slopes, valleys, ridges, and spurs, covering 72.19% of the area. These landforms are characterized by the dominance of Singhbhum groups of rock and Chhotanagpur gneissic complex, fine loamy and loamy skeletal soil types, agricultural land, and vegetation LULC categories, with slight to moderate erosion. The TPI-based landform of valley and Geomorphon-based landforms of pit and hollow are significantly affected by severe erosion. The study contributes to the formulation of landform-specific land use planning strategy and highlights the necessity of integrating climatic, hydrological, and socio-economic data into the planning process to achieve environmental sustainability.</p>