International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Water quality monitoring and assessment has become a critical issue because it affects human and aquatic life. In recent years Beki River of Assam, India have encountered serious threats which includes sand mining, use of fertilizers on the river banks, uncontrolled fishing that have altered the water quality of the river specially in the fish landing sites. These have caused significant reduction in abundance of the fresh water fishes in the region. This study identifies the parameters that are responsible for decreasing the water quality in the six fish landing sites of the river. The study shows low pH of the river water indicating its acidity nature. Decrease in Dissolved oxygen (DO) during the monsoon in Dumnigh at, Sapakama and Madulijar suggested poor quality of water indicating the slow rate of photosynthesis by phytoplankton present in the Beki River. The concentration of Iron in Gobardhana, Sapakama and Dumnigh at during post monsoon was higher than the maximum limit of 0.3 mg/l. Concentration of nitrate was found to be higher than the limit of 45 mg/l in all the landing sites except for Gobardhana due to application of inorganic nitrogen fertilizers in the agricultural farm in the river bank. Concentration of manganese, arsenic and lead was found to be higher than the maximum limit in the fish landing sites. The spatial variations of the major ions reflects the influence of various anthropogenic and lithology’s activities in the river system.

Index Terms—Beki river, water quality, fertilizers, anthropogenic, dissolved oxygen, arsenic, lead.

Pallabi Goswami is with the Barnagar college, Barpeta, Assam, India (corresponding author; e-mail: goswami.pallabi29@gmail.com).
Siddhartha Singha is with School of Agro& Rural Technology (Formerly Centre of rural technology), Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India (e-mail: siddharthafp@iitg.ac.in).

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Cite: Pallabi Goswami and Siddhartha Singha, "Water Quality Assessment of Some Fish Landing Sites of Beki River, of Barpeta, Assam, India," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 85-91, 2022.

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