Public reading
100 ha · 44.446, -72.898 · United States
The water is willing. Follow it.
87th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 43 conservation priority
16 of 26 sources answered, each named and dated ↓ · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: osm_overpass, sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc…
Three things to know
Rainfall is moderate.
1,215 mm of rain per year.
clear sky
This area is highly exposed to projected climate change by 2050.
Projected change by 2050: +2.5 °C mean temperature, -13% rainfall.
light haze
Most of the parcel reads as tree cover.
78% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping).
in fog
First move · first year
Design to the 2050 climate projections rather than today's conditions.
Cross-check the projections against the memory of long-time residents on how the seasons have already shifted here.
then: Ground-truth what the canopy actually is before assuming forest value.
One measurement per instrument, each drawn to its own scale. Hover a mark for the reading behind it.
Rain · 21 years
Up 31.4% over twenty years. Open-Meteo.
The ground and its cover
ESA WorldCover. It cannot tell natural forest from plantation.
Elevation & slope
266–369 m across the parcel. AWS terrain tiles.
Climate to 2050
From today's 7.0 °C. Expect is the honest word: this is a projection.
Species records
1,508 within 1 km of it. Log scale. A count this size also measures survey effort, not only life. GBIF.
Access
OpenStreetMap.
Where the parcel sits between securing it and hosting people on it, and the project that fits it best.
Best-fit model
Protect the keystone; hold the connection open.
Standalone conservation value, outside the mapped network.
Drawing the film…
The film
The place, the score, the five pillars and three findings, set over contour lines traced from this parcel’s own elevation. Every figure on screen is this reading’s; the last finding is the one it is least sure of. Nothing in it is generated.
vertical · drawn in your browser from this reading
Go deeper
Everything the instruments read about this land, in its own words: the narrative, the maps, the evidence card by card, the 2050 window, what to do first, an analyst to ask, and all 26 sources, each named and dated.
The reading in full
This 100-hectare parcel near Bolton, Chittenden County, Vermont is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 73 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.
The risks that most shape a decision here: This area is highly exposed to projected climate change by 2050. Large shifts in temperature and rainfall can change what the land can support, so any plan should be built around the projected conditions, not current ones.
Where the upside lies: The soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration. Carbon-rich soil holds water and nutrients well, supports higher yields and faster regrowth, and may qualify for soil-carbon programs. Most of the parcel reads as tree cover. Tree cover can carry real conservation and carbon value, but satellite land-cover cannot tell natural forest from a monoculture plantation (oil palm, rubber, teak). Confirm which it is before assuming biodiversity or carbon value.
The wider readings: Rainfall is moderate. Water is adequate for many uses, but storage through the dry season improves reliability. This parcel is a position in a watershed, not an island. What arrives here is decided upstream, and what happens here is felt downstream — land use on this parcel is water stewardship for everyone below it. Read the upstream land uses before trusting the water, and count the downstream neighbours before changing it. The land is gently rolling. Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads. The largest buildable bench is 54.33 ha. This is the piece that decides what fits: a single footprint, its access, and its services all have to land on contiguous ground. Everything beyond it is a second site, not an extension of the first. The area has a rich record of documented wildlife. High biodiversity adds conservation value, may bring species-protection rules, and can support eco-tourism or habitat-credit programs. The human fabric around this land is measured, not assumed. Labour, emergencies, schooling, and electricity all run on these distances — they decide what daily life and operations here actually cost. Jurisdiction is part of the parcel. Permits, zoning, water, and roads run through these offices — knowing who governs the land is the first step of every plan that touches it.
What the land is telling us: Read across the record, the land reads as stable: the canopy history shows no meaningful loss in a generation and the water signal is holding, which means the work is to build on a sound base rather than to reverse a decline. Of the land's core processes, the water cycle reads as adequate to abundant, so the question is less supply than how well the land captures and holds what falls and community dynamics look rich, with a deep record of documented life on the parcel. What orbit cannot see is what happens below the surface — soil biology, structure, and the carbon held in the ground — so treat those as the first things to confirm underfoot. Taken together, this is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. Its clearest strength to build from is that the soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration.
The ground and its cover
The verdict, the five pillar readings, how much of the land was read, and the headline figures.
The verdict
Bolton, Chittenden County, Vermont
87th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 43 conservation priority
Five readings
Weakest: Climate
All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land.
Standing
all readings worldwide · against 124 readings
Coverage
16 of 26 layers answered
Every pillar read from live data.
Silent: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar +7.
Where the capital goes
Frontierhospitality fit 64
Best-fit model
Corridor anchor reserve
Fit from published rules over the indicators.
The land in numbers
Headline figures. The Why tab carries each reading in full, with its source and its date. “Not read” means the source had nothing for this parcel: a gap is named, never filled with a guess.
How this land works
About 1,215 mm of rain falls here in a year. 78% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (4.2° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. By 2050 the models expect +2.5 °C and -13% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.
Holding — the canopy record shows no meaningful loss in a generation.
Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 78% tree cover beside the network and a conservation priority of 43, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open. To help: keep the canopy whole; the loop is running the right way on its own.
The score is the footnote. What matters is the pattern above it: what arrives, what the ground does with it, what leaves, and which way that is moving.
This place
100 hectares at Bolton of rolling land around 300 m. The ground reads 78% under canopy. Water shapes it — 1,215 mm of rain a year. 1,216 people within 5 km, governed from Chittenden County.
Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 78% tree cover beside the network and a conservation priority of 43, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.
This is an outsider's reading, assembled from instruments and public records. It is where understanding begins, not where it ends — the land, its neighbours, and the people who know it hold the rest.
Occurrence records (count + top species)
Recorded historic/heritage features within 10 km — generalized to counts, classes and distance bands; never coordinates
Named places and features of the surrounding landscape (titles + distances)
Nominatim reverse geocode
Terrarium elevation tiles
Archive 2004–2024 + MPI-ESM1-2-XR to 2050
SoilGrids v2.0 (SOC, pH, sand, clay; 0–30 cm)
WorldCover 2021 v200
Global Surface Water v1.4 — occurrence & seasonality
Global Forest Change (tree cover 2000 + annual loss)
Per-cell slope and aspect (Horn), buildable share, largest contiguous bench
Upstream basin + downstream flowpath (screening hydrography)
Gridded population 2020 (parcel + 5 km ring sums)
M ≥ 5 events within 100 km, past 50 years
Satellite Embedding v1, annual (64-dimensional per-pixel embedding) — baseline and latest year compared
Administrative hierarchy + structured facts of the governing unit
Every number above is public, open data — named, dated, and licensed. What TERRA does not publish is the lens: the weights, curves, and verdict thresholds that turn these layers into a Land Score. That judgment is calibrated from land walked on the ground, and it stays proprietary.
Unavailable for this parcel: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar, the infrastructure reach, osm adaptation, the governance record, the thermal read, the biomass map, the hazard screen, modis fire history — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.
Generated Thu, 01 Oct 2026 11:28:20 GMT · 17.8s · synthesized by TERRA.