Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Beehar River Water, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India: A Review of Published Water-Quality Data
Kiran Singh *
Department of Zoology at Government College Semaria, Rewa (Madhya Pradesh), India.
Vijay Kumar Singh
Department of Horticulture, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, College of Agriculture, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Namrata Dwivedi
Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, College of Agriculture, Rewa, Madhya Pradesh, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The Beehar River, a Vindhyan tributary of the Tons (Tamas) River in the Ganga basin, flows through Rewa city in Madhya Pradesh, India, where it supplies raw water, receives urban drainage and supports fisheries, bathing and religious use. Published information on its water quality is scattered across regional journals, has never been compared systematically and has not previously been appraised for internal reliability. This critical narrative review synthesises the published physico-chemical record of the river and its principal urban tributary, the Bichhiya, and evaluates how far that record supports conclusions about pollution status, seasonal behaviour and fitness for use. Literature was identified through multidisciplinary scholarly indexes, a national thesis repository, citation tracking and institutional sources, and each data set was appraised for sampling design, analytical transparency, unit reporting and internal consistency. Twelve data sets reported between 2012 and 2026, covering sampling from 2010 to 2025, met the inclusion criteria. The evidence consistently indicates near-neutral to alkaline water, nitrate concentrations far below drinking-water limits, recurrent faecal contamination and organic enrichment in the urban reach. Beyond these points, agreement weakens sharply. Reported dissolved oxygen ranges from near-anoxic to strongly supersaturated, biochemical oxygen demand differs by an order of magnitude between studies, and hardness, alkalinity, phosphate and silica estimates diverge by one to two orders of magnitude without any accompanying hydrological explanation. Several data sets contain diagnostic failures, including biochemical oxygen demand exceeding chemical oxygen demand, salinity values incompatible with dissolved solids, and text that contradicts tabulated results. None reports discharge, quality-control samples, detection limits or ionic balances. The river is therefore best described as an urban-impacted, sewage-influenced system whose chemical baseline remains poorly constrained. A flow-referenced, quality-assured monitoring programme with an upstream reference station, major-ion analysis, nutrient speciation and openly archived data is required before trends, indices or regulatory classifications can be defended.
Keywords: Beehar River, Vindhyan rivers, surface water chemistry, dissolved oxygen, organic pollution, data quality assurance, faecal contamination, Ganga basin