Summary:

Living and industrial sewage is claimed to be the only source of the water pollution in urban areas. Therefore the regulation of sewage management – which is building or extension of sewerage systems - is considered to be the suffi-cient protection of the urban water resources. Urbanized areas, especially mu-nicipal – industrial agglomerations become huge sources of air, water, soil, streets, squares, roofs and non-built-up areas pollution. Pollutants washed down from the streets or other impregnated surfaces, during the precipitation or snow-melt, are the serious danger for the soil and water environment. The article reviews the obliging legal regulations concerning the drainage and management of the precipitation water from the urbanized areas. The main attention was paid to possibilities of the retention and infiltration of precipitation water – which is their management in the site where the precipitation originates. Moreover, the examples of created and exploited objects used for retention and infiltration together with the effects of pollutants’ reduction in the treated pre-cipitation water were presented. The basic legal documents concerning the man-agement possibilities and quality standards of precipitation water are the Water Law from 18th July 2001 and The Regulation of the Minister of Environment from 24th July 2006 regarding the conditions which must be fulfilled when introducing the sewage into the water or ground, and regarding the substances particularly harmful to the water environment. In the quoted legal regulations, precipitation water is qualified as sewage in case it is captivated as open or closed sanitation systems, originating from the contaminated surfaces of the solid paving. The other legal documents, which consider the possibilities of precipitation water management are: Directive of the European Parliament about communal sewage treatment (91/271/EWG), Ministry of Transport and Maritime Economy Regula-tion from 30th May 2000 regarding the technical conditions, which should be ful-filled in case of the road engineering objects and their placement (Dz.U. nr 63, pos. 735), Act of Environmental Protection from 27th April 2001 (Dz.U. nr 62, pos. 627), Act of Collective Water Supply and Collective Sewage Drainage from 7th June 2001 (Dz.U. nr 72, pos. 747), Act of Planning and Spatial Development from 27th March 2003 (Dz.U. nr 80, pos. 717), Council of Ministers Regulation from 9th November 2004 concerning the types of ventures which can significantly influence the environment and detailed conditions related to qualification of the venture to create the report about influence on the environment (Dz.U. nr 257, pos. 2573).