eng Science and Education Publishing American Journal of Water Resources 2333-4819 2018-04-12 6 1 25 38 10.12691/ajwr-6-1-4 AJWR2018614 article Pratap Kumar Panda 1 Rahas Bihari Panda 2 Prasant Kumar Dash pandapratap100@gmail.com 3 Department of Chemistry, A.B College, Basudevpur, Bhadrak, Odisha, India Department of Chemistry, VSSUT, Burla, Odisha, India Department Chemistry, Bhadrak Autonomous College, Bhadrak, Odisha, India Water is the elixir of life as there is no life without water and the rivers are the life line of our economy and culture. The river water pollution in India and abroad is a gigantic problem as it has affected not only of human and animal health but also the economy of the society as a whole. This work reviews a large number of research papers published by different researchers on river water pollution in India and abroad by critically analyzing and interpreting data on the different physico-chemical parameters and finds that the river water in India and abroad is highly polluted in respect of physically, chemically and bacteriologically with different hazardous pollutants including both chemical and microbial, coming from various sources such as industries, mines, agriculture, urban and domestic. Besides, this work finds and outlines the interrelationship among different physico-chemical parameters after careful analysis and interpretation of data and discussions published in different research papers. The dissolved oxygen (DO) and the pH are inversely related with temperature and turbidity and it is directly related with photosynthesis by autotrops. Further, biological oxygen demand (BOD) and free carbon dioxide are directly related with temperature. This review work gives opinions and suggestions to explain the experimental results by applying the standard concepts and outlines a brief guide line for the assessment of water pollution of river water. http://pubs.sciepub.com/ajwr/6/1/4/ajwr-6-1-4.pdf river water pollution physico-chemical parameters bacteriological parameters relationship among different parameters