Land use affects the distribution of benthic macroinvertebrate fauna along the river continuum and are hence useful indicators of this stress (Richards et al. 1993; Roth et al. 1996; Hershey & Lamberti 1998; Allan 2004). This knowledge pertains to temperate streams. Such an impact has been scarcely investigated in tropical India (Singh & Nautiyal 1990; Subramanian et al. 2005; Nautiyal & Mishra 2011).