Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 Water Air Soil Pollut (2023) 234:154 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-023-06169-z Evaluation of Water Quality Status of Pohru watershed, Kashmir valley, Jammu and Kashmir, India Abaas Ahmad Mir · Ummar Ahad  · Meer Inayatullah · Umair Ali · Pervez Ahmed Received: 21 December 2022 / Accepted: 9 February 2023 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Abstract Pohru watershed located towards north of Kashmir valley is the largest watershed of the Jhe- lum basin. The watershed is heavily intervened by the human activities such as irrigation, sewage discharge, sand extraction, and other domestic activities thereby, rendering signifcant changes in its water quality. Therefore, in this study, an analysis of physicochemi- cal parameters water temperature, dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, salinity, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, nitrate, chloride, hardness, alkalin- ity, phosphorous, free carbon dioxide, ortho phospho- rus, and ammonia has been carried out to evaluate its water quality status. The analysis was carried out following the standard methods of American Pub- lic Health Association and the results obtained were compared with BIS and WHO standards for quality check Most of the parameters were found within the BIS permissible limits except at certain sites that include pH, and dissolved oxygen. The chemical quality parameters were within the range except the total dissolved solids (TDS), total suspended sol- ids (TSS), nitrogen, and phosphorus. The increased level of TDS and TSS in water is attributed to LU/LC change, and soil erosion, activities in the area. Simi- larly, the higher nitrogen and phosphorus concentra- tion in water is probably due to the higher utilization of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in the area. Keywords Physico-chemical · Water quality · Pohru watershed · BIS Standard · WHO · TDS · TSS 1 Introduction Water is the basic commodity and the essence of life on the surface of the earth. It dominantly represents (8.54%) chemical composition of all organisms living on the earth (Chaplin, 2001). The ubiquity of water in biota, as the fulcrum of biochemical metabolism, rests on its unique physical and chemical properties (Del Giudice, 2009). The physical and the chemical char- acteristics of stream/riverine water is also a refection of the climate and the physical environment consist- ing diferent types of soils, rocks, and biological char- acteristics of the watershed (Bluth & Kump, 1994; Peters & Meybeck, 2000). The occurrence of precipi- tation and rainfall also infuence the composition of A. A. Mir · P. Ahmed  Department of Geography and Disaster Management, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India U. Ahad (*)  Centre of Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India e-mail: ummar.scholar@kashmiruniversity.net; parray. umar@gmail.com M. Inayatullah  Post Graduate Department of Geography, Amar Singh College, Srinagar, India U. Ali  Department of Geology, GDC Kupwara, Jammu and Kashmir, Kupwara, India