The City
Leuven is a vibrant city, centrally located within Belgium and Europe. A city is known for its heritage as it lies along the Dyle River. The city has an area of 57km2 with just 100,000 inhabitants. It has internationally renowned knowledge institutions with a strong young graduate population. The city can also be characterized by key urban green spaces such as a botanical garden, and several forests from the North to South which are situated within the valley of the river Dyle. Due to the intensely growing population, there is high land-use pressure that limited public and urban space availability in the medieval city structure. There is an increasing need for NbS to assure a qualitative urban future with increasing climate change impacts: urban heat island, flood risk, droughts & biodiversity loss.