ABSTRACT

Environmental management in developing countries has become today a great challenge for municipalities. Cities are generally characterized by a considerable urban explosion and an accumulation of socio-economical and political problems. Their urban area offers the best social security benefi ts, but paradoxically, it is the enclave for unhealthy conditions and social effervescence. Developing countries know the meaning of a sprawl resulting by increasing inner cities called “shanty town”. This phenomenon is the product of several combined factors: increasing demography, accelerated and unplanned urbanization and property of urban

population fringe. Consequently, poor and hardly well-managed stormwater drainage systems and pollution sources have become a major environmental challenge for these countries. Stormwater are generally mixed with others wastewater such as domestic wastewater, leachates, waste oils and hospital effl uents. These point sources containing biodegradable organic matter, inorganic and organic chemicals, toxic substances and disease causing agents are frequently discharged into soils, oceans, rivers, lakes, or wetlands without treatment.Technical alternatives such as infi ltration basins, retention ponds, porous pavements with reservoir structures, soakaways and grass fi lter strips or swales are practically non-existent. However, urban stormwater infi ltration is considered as one of the main factors of the deterioration of soils and groundwater quality.