AbstractA practical method for predicting the dissolved oxygen (DO) profile in a stream receiving biodegradable waste is presented. In this method the BOD (accumulated O2uptake) curve is obtained using an open jug technique. The accumulated O2uptake curve thus developed is employed in numerical integration with the physical reaeration data for the receiving stream to predict the DO profile in the stream. In the present study, the method was examined using 10‐liter open jar reactors to obtain the O2uptake curves, and the receiving stream was a 670‐liter simulated stream apparatus which has been employed in previous studies on stream reaeration. The method was found to provide a fairly good prediction of the actual dissolved oxygen profile observed in the receiving stream. The effect of the reaeration constant, K2)agitation effect(, on the kinetics of O2uptake was also investigated and it was found that increased agitation (higher K2value) caused some increase in the accumulated oxygen uptake (BOD) curve with most of the increase coming after the so‐called “plateau” area in the O2uptake curve, i.e., in the general case, after the low point along the DO