The modified biochemical oxygen demand (MBOD) were conducted to evaluate the water quality and fertility in the Mangyeong river from november 2002 to april 2003. MBOD method was used to evaluate algal growth potentials and their limiting factors. MBOD depends on the amount of available inorganic nutrient and organic substrate during 5-day incubation in the dark condition at $20^{circ}C.$ The MBOD assay depends on inorganic nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen as well as reduced carbon as called MBOD, MBOD-P, and MBOD-N, respectively. The concentration of pollutants were in the range of 3.08～48.36 mg/L for COD. The concentration of nutrients were in the range of 0.37～111.62 mg/L for dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and 0.00～1.03 mg/L for dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP). The results of MBOD bioassay showed that the MBOD, MBOD-P and MBOD-N values were 15～173 mg $O_2/L,$ 13～165 mg $O_2/L$ and 66～175 mg $O_2/L$ ranges, respectively. The MBOD values are found to be the highest in Iksan River and the lowest in Hari River throughout the Mangyeong River. The relationships of MBOD, MBOD-P and MBOD-N in MBOD method were generally found in MBOD$ isingdotseq$ MBOD-P$ isingdotseq$MBOD-N. But the result of Gosan was appeared to MBOD$ isingdotseq$MBOD-N > MBOD-P. The MBOD-N value was higher 3 to 5 times than the MBOD-P value in the Gosan station. The algal growth potentials expressed as the concentration of chlorophyll-a were maximum 20 times more than algal biomass in the water column.