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  • Modelling the effects of long-term urban land use change on the water balance
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    The level of land consumption for housing and transport contrasts sharply with both the necessity and
    the legal obligation to maintain the ecological potential afforded by open spaces to meet the needs of
    current and future generations in terms of resource protection and climate change. Owing to the
    increasing intensity of soil usage, in many urban landscapes the soil conditions has deteriorated. The
    natural filter and run-off regulating functions of soils are impaired or even disappeared altogether by
    land surfacing. Since such soil functions closely depend on the soil’s biophysical properties, the
    decline of water balance functionality caused by urbanisation and increasing imperviousness varies.
    In response to the demand to sustainably secure urban water resources, it needs to be assessed exactly
    how land surfacing affects the functions concerned. Analysing and evaluating the urban land use
    change and the respective imperviousness on the long-term water balance ought to improve our
    general understanding of the water household related impact of urbanisation. Therefore, the aim of
    this paper is to assess the impact of urban land use change and land surfacing on the long-term water
    balance over a 130-year trajectory using the example of Leipzig. In particular, attention is to be paid
    to evapotranspiration, direct runoff and groundwater recharge.