Up to date, urban hydrology related to stormwater drainage utilizes a very large number of models to represent the two evolutionary phenomena, runoff and drainage. These are pseudo-empirical models, restricted to their scope and without theoretical basis. It seems essential to revisit the definition of these models in order to identify their cognitive and pragmatic values, and connections they have with the hydrodynamics. After redefining the existing empirical models, we update the links they have with the hydrodynamics. These connections give them a theoretical foundation and allow to develop a model of runoff and flow which generalizes all the existing filters models. This approach is essential to a good use of these models as well as any new development
