Water pollution is a major challenge in urban areas. The main source of water pollution is the runoff accelerated from impervious areas and agricultural land. In recent years, planning and designing of urban water management in Malaysia is moving away from the conventional thinking of designing for flooding to balancing the impact of urban drainage on flood control and quality management. In order to minimize the environmental impact of water pollution, Best management practices (BMPs) and Low impact development (LID) approaches have been used to manage runoff as close as possible to its source. The individual practices often have a low ability to provide consistent pollutant removal. Therefore, the arrangement of several LID-BMPs is recommended. This arrangement in series is called a treatment train. There is a need to review findings in the use of treatment train for water quality control. Therefore, this review paper discussing the ability of the treatment train for water quality control of runoff in urban areas in Malaysia. In addition, it compares a single treatment with the treatment train. The use of treatment train was very effective for stormwater control when compared with a single treatment practice. However, the use of treatment train for treating other types of runoff such as agricultural runoff still not implemented yet. It is recommended to use this system for treating other types of runoff such as agricultural runoff in the future work. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.