261 Ethiopian Journal of Environmental Studies & Management 13(2): 261 – 273, 2020. ISSN:1998-0507 doi: https://ejesm.org/doi/v13i2.12 Submitted: March 19, 2020 Accepted: May 11, 2020 WATER QUALITY OF THE UPPER BENUE RIVER OF TARABA STATE, NIGERIA DAVID, D.L., 1 *BARAU, B.W., 1 HAMMANJODA, S.A., 1 AZUCHUKWUENE, C.G., 2 DANBA, E.P., 1 FAUZIYA, K.M., 1 BATURE, A.A. 1 AND BINGARI, S.M. 1 1 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Taraba State University, P. M. B. 1167, Jalingo, Nigeria 2 Department of Environmental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, Taraba State University *Corresponding author: barau.bw@tsuniversity.edu.ng Abstract Water quality of River Benue was studied to understand the contamination status and safe of usage. Physico-chemical parameters like Temperature, Turbidity, TDS, DO, pH, Conductivity, Nitrates, and heavy metals such as; Zn, Cd, Cr, Pb and Ni were studied at Lau and Mayo Ranewo towns between July, 2017 – February, 2018 to compared with NIS, NDWQI and WHO standards. The results showed that all phyico-chemical parameters studied were within the allowable limits but the heavy metals appear above allowable limits. Water Quality Index (WQI) further showed that the water is not fit for domestic usage with values of 55 and 78 at Lau and Mayo-Ranewo respectively. Hence, it was advised that more detailed studies covering both biological and physical aspect should be conducted to ascertain the exact level of contamination with a view to identifying the sources of contamination and solutions. Key Words: Water, Quality, River Benue, Lau, Mayo-Ranewo, Physico-chemical Introduction Rivers provide life-saving services worldwide with diverse categories of flora and fauna (Gupta et al., 2009), the quality of any water system reflects the inter-play of abiotic conditions existing in such environments (Ali and Khairy, 2012). Rivers and lakes provides most of earths’ freshwater resources and also provide humans with enormous benefits in both domestic and irrigational activities (Arain et al., 2008; Dirican, 2015). Sustainable usage of water systems depend on maintaining their natural features both abiotic and biotic to fully understand the intricate and significant nature of its ecological functions and importance (Komala et al., 2013). Hence, regular monitoring through the use of biotic and abiotic parameters have been suggested. Physico-chemical parameters include Temperature, pH, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Total Dissolved Salts (TDS), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Conductivity, Turbidity and many inorganic substances etc. These parameters are very important in knowing the quality of water before it is used for drinking, domestic, agricultural or industrial purposes. Hence, water quality analysis is important to protect the natural ecosystem (Patil et al., 2012). This work is licensed to the publisher under the Creative Commons Attributions License 4.0