Public reading

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Shaded-relief view of the land around Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

46,458 ha inside the gold line

5 km

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan

46,458 ha · 16.394, 28.389 · Sudan

26out of 100 · Land ScoreReclaim

Foundational work first. The potential follows.

2nd percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 0 conservation priority

Water: 25
Soil: 15
Ecology: 0
Climate: 10
Pressure: 100

15 of 25 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: osm_overpass, sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc…

The reading in full

This 46,458-hectare parcel near Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan is land that asks for foundational work first — water, soil, access. It scores 26 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: Rainfall is low, making water availability a primary constraint. Low rainfall limits what can be grown without irrigation and raises the cost and importance of water storage and supply. Dry spells are projected to run about 228 days by 2050. A long rain-free stretch — not the yearly total — is what empties soil moisture and storage; size water storage and choose drought-tolerant planting to the dry spell, not the annual average. 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.

The wider readings: The land is projected to see roughly 228 hot days a year by 2050. Many days above 32 °C stress crops, livestock, workers, and unshaded ground; favour heat-tolerant species, shade, and water retention, and plan for cooling and storage. 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 flat. Flat ground is easy to build on, farm, and mechanize, though low flat land can drain poorly and should be checked for waterlogging. Little wildlife has been formally recorded here. A low record count usually reflects limited survey effort rather than low biodiversity, so a ground survey is needed before drawing conclusions. Soil organic carbon is low. Low-carbon soil is typically depleted or sandy; building fertility for productive use takes time, cover crops, and organic inputs. 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 is the binding constraint — rainfall is low, so what the land can carry is set by how water is stored and held and community dynamics are barely recorded here — an absence of data, not necessarily of life. 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 that asks for foundational work first — water, soil, access.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan — Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 · ESA / Copernicus

The verdict, the five pillar readings, how much of the land was read, and the headline figures.

The verdict

26out of 100 · Land ScoreReclaim

Foundational work first. The potential follows.

Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

2nd percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 0 conservation priority

Five readings

Water25

Soil15

Ecology0

Climate10

Pressure100

Weakest: Ecology

All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land.

Standing

2ndpercentile

all readings worldwide · against 100 readings

Coverage

100%

weight read

15 of 25 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Silent: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar +7.

Where the capital goes

0/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 30

Best-fit model

Regenerative village

36 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

46,458ha

Elevation

451m

430–475 m

Slope

0.2°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

13mm/yr

+164% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+0.9°C

rain +92%

Soil carbon

3.2g/kg

pH 8.2

Nearest road

not read

Species records

1records

GBIF, the global species archive

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 13 mm of rain falls here in a year. 0% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (0.2° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. By 2050 the models expect +0.9 °C and +92% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holding — the canopy record shows no meaningful loss in a generation.

A community sited on the working matrix. Larger, accessible, and buildable near existing settlement, this matrix land has room for a regenerative community that keeps the habitat edges intact and restores the rest. To help: plant along the watercourses and the ridge: canopy there returns the most water to the rest.

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

46,458 hectares at Sowdari سودري of gentle land around 451 m. The ground reads 0% under canopy. Water shapes it — 13 mm of rain a year. 2,550 people within 5 km, governed from Sowdari سودري.

Its vocationinhabit carefully

451 m elevation0% forest0.2° slope13 mm rain/yrFrontier tier — outside the mapped network

Its trajectoryholding— the canopy record shows no meaningful loss in a generation.

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.

The water’s position

What arrives here is decided upstream; what happens here is felt downstream. The map in the Land tab can draw both.

Drains to this point

not read

Mapped path below

144 km

Source

MERIT-Hydro

a global hydrography grid, ~90 m

Screening hydrography, never a legal drainage determination.

The people around it

People within 5 km

2,550 people

WorldPop, 2020

People on the parcel

627 people

Who governs this land

السودان · شمال كردفان North Kordofan · Sowdari سودري

What the land is exposed to — and what stands against it

The hazard screen did not answer for this parcel, so no reading is paired here — the adaptation layer alone is shown below the seismic record.

What the record remembers

No heritage features recorded within 10 km of this parcel.

Locations are deliberately withheld; presence is shown at landscape scale only. Recorded presence in the open public record only. Absence of information here is not evidence of absence — national heritage registries are the authority.

Relationships

A parcel is a node in living systems, not an island. Each line below is derived from this reading itself.

Each line is tagged with how it is known: estimated, from a model, not a measurement · official, from a public or state record · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page.

estimated
This parcel collects the water of its watershed— screening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)
estimated
This parcel sends its water down Downstream flowpath144 km mapped below the parcel— screening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)
official
This parcel answers to Sowdari سودري
official
Sowdari سودري sits in شمال كردفان North Kordofan
official
شمال كردفان North Kordofan sits in السودان
derived
This parcel is read against all readings worldwidep2 of 100 readings

Where it sits

A living system does not stop at the fence. The parcel is a node in each of these, and it plays a different part at each scale.

1
parcel
46,458 ha inside the boundary
mostly open ground
0% tree cover
2
catchment
its catchment
a sink: a large country drains through it
144 km of mapped path below

The threads

Where the readings connect. Each thread follows one chain of cause and consequence across the instruments, and ends in what it means for what you do.

Each line is tagged with how it is known: recorded, from the historical archive · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · observed, measured from satellite or map data · estimated, from a model, not a measurement · scientific, from a published study.

The forest here has held for a generation.

recordedThis canopy has held: 0% cover in 2000, 0% lost since, none of it recent.

What to doThe work here is keeping, not fixing — and the first walk should confirm the stand is as intact up close as it reads from orbit.

Bears on the land's living value · high confidence

The weakest number here is a silence, not a judgment.

derivedThe ecology pillar reads 0 — but it leans on almost no recorded wildlife observations, and absence of records usually reflects absence of surveys, not absence of life.
derivedTreat that pillar — and the composite it drags — as a floor: one field survey could move this reading materially, in only one direction.

What to doCommission a rapid biodiversity survey before treating the score as the land's ceiling.

Bears on the score itself · high confidence

More water is arriving — and arriving harder.

observedThe twenty-year rain record moved +164.2% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
estimatedThat energy leaves along a mapped 144 km downstream path — what this parcel's cover holds back, the people below never have to absorb.

What to doKeep or restore cover on the slopes and size drainage for pulses, not averages; verify culverts and crossings in the wet season.

Bears on this land and the people downstream · medium confidence

Strong land, standing on its own.

derivedThe Land Score reads 26 against a conservation priority of 0.
derivedIts value is intrinsic rather than positional — the network does not depend on it, which frees what it can be.

What to doPlans here answer to the land itself, not to a network obligation.

Bears on what a plan owes the landscape · medium confidence

For its kind of land, its soil is unusually weak.

derivedAgainst 100 readings of like land (all readings worldwide), this parcel's soil ranks in the bottom 1%.
derivedAn unusual weakness is rarely bad luck — something specific happened or is happening here that its peers escaped.

What to doMake soil the first diligence question on the ground: find the cause before pricing the land.

Bears on what this land is, relative to its kind · medium confidence

This land comes with neighbours.

scientific2,550 people live within 5 km — this land sits inside a living community.
derivedThe neighbours are the labor pool, the early-warning system, and the social license — the project's first relationships are already living here.

What to doMeet the neighbours before the notary — what they know and want will shape everything here.

Bears on daily life and operating cost · medium confidence

The loops that govern it

Regeneration is not a feature added to land; it is a loop changing direction. These are the ones the readings can see, which way each is running, and where a hand changes it.

Forest and water

canopy → cloud and rain held → streams and soil moisture → canopy

holding

0% tree cover on 13 mm of rain; 0% of the tree cover lost since 2000.

Plant along the watercourses and the ridge: canopy there returns the most water to the rest.

Open ground and soil

bare or grazed ground → compaction → runoff → thinner soil

holding

100% open ground on a 0.2° average slope.

Keep the ground covered through the dry season; rested pasture and cover crops turn this loop around on gentle slopes.

Reading the place

This 46,458-hectare parcel near Sowdari سودري, North Kordufan, Sudan is land that asks for foundational work first — water, soil, access, scoring 26 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that rainfall is low, making water availability a primary constraint. The first move: build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.

Riskhigh confidence

Rainfall is low, making water availability a primary constraint.

Low rainfall limits what can be grown without irrigation and raises the cost and importance of water storage and supply.

13 mm of rain per year — below the roughly 1,000 mm rain-fed agriculture usually needs.

Riskmedium confidence

Dry spells are projected to run about 228 days by 2050.

A long rain-free stretch — not the yearly total — is what empties soil moisture and storage; size water storage and choose drought-tolerant planting to the dry spell, not the annual average.

Longest yearly run of days under 1 mm of rain projected near 228 days (Open-Meteo daily climate).

Riskmedium confidence

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.

Projected change by 2050: +0.9 °C mean temperature, +92% rainfall. Exposure rated High.

Climatemedium confidence

The land is projected to see roughly 228 hot days a year by 2050.

Many days above 32 °C stress crops, livestock, workers, and unshaded ground; favour heat-tolerant species, shade, and water retention, and plan for cooling and storage.

About 228 days a year with a daily high of 32 °C or more by the 2050 horizon up from about 227 today (Open-Meteo daily climate).

Watermedium confidence

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.

its own water runs 144 km downstream of it (MERIT-Hydro screening hydrography).

Terrainhigh confidence

The land is flat.

Flat ground is easy to build on, farm, and mechanize, though low flat land can drain poorly and should be checked for waterlogging.

Mean elevation 451 m, mean slope 0°, 45 m of relief.

Biodiversitylow confidence

Little wildlife has been formally recorded here.

A low record count usually reflects limited survey effort rather than low biodiversity, so a ground survey is needed before drawing conclusions.

Only 1 biodiversity records nearby (GBIF, the global species-record archive).

Soilmedium confidence

Soil organic carbon is low.

Low-carbon soil is typically depleted or sandy; building fertility for productive use takes time, cover crops, and organic inputs.

3.2 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, sandy clay loam texture, pH 8.2 (ISRIC SoilGrids).

Accessmedium confidence

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.

2,550 people live within 5 km (WorldPop 2020).

Accesslow confidence

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.

السودان · شمال كردفان North Kordofan · Sowdari سودري.

Confidence reflects the data behind each reading: high when clear passes or strong sources agree, medium on a partial or single-source signal, low where the data is sparse or indirect. A low-confidence reading usually needs one more clear pass, or a check on the ground.

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 is the binding constraint — rainfall is low, so what the land can carry is set by how water is stored and held and community dynamics are barely recorded here — an absence of data, not necessarily of life. 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 that asks for foundational work first — water, soil, access.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

0Conservation priority

FrontierWorking-land buffer

Standalone conservation value, outside the mapped network.

standalone value, outside the mapped network

Two lenses, two numbers: the Land Score reads this land's own body; conservation priority reads its position in the network. When they disagree, the gap itself is the finding.

This reads as working land best held as a buffer, scoring 0 out of 100 for conservation priority. It carries standalone value outside the mapped network — worth holding on its own terms.

30/100

Hospitality fit

The funding layer: a small, low-footprint operation sited on the already-worked ground, sized to carry the restoration — never spending the habitat it depends on.

Conservationmedium confidence

This reads as working land — its role is to buffer the core, not to be the core.

Land like this holds the habitat's edge: kept in low-impact use, it shields the intact land beside it from encroachment and gives the living network room to breathe.

0% tree cover.

Hospitalitylow confidence

A modest hospitality layer is possible, but it is not the strongest card.

In the regenerative model the lodging is a means, not the end: a low-footprint operation sited on the already-worked ground earns the revenue that funds the restoration and stewardship, while the core is left to recover. Kept small, it also gives the corridor local guardians with a reason to hold it.

Hospitality fit 30/100, drawing on the setting. Site any building on the already-worked ground, not the habitat.

Capital moves

01
Tie up the land before restoring it — purchase or an easement that holds through a sale.
Before committing
Restoration is a multi-year investment; without secure tenure the connectivity it builds can be undone by the next owner.
Confirm on the ground · Trace the title and cadastral record, and check what conservation-finance the jurisdiction offers before committing.
02
Thicken cover along the parcel's edges and watercourses to widen what species can move through.
First year
As a stepping stone or buffer, the parcel's contribution is its edges and riparian strips — the parts that link to the habitat next door.
Confirm on the ground · With an ecologist, identify the connecting strips worth planting first; confirm which watercourses cross the land at the end of the dry season.
03
Set a wildlife baseline and re-read it — camera traps on the parcel's connecting edges.
Ongoing
Funders and partners judge conservation land by whether wildlife actually uses it; a repeatable baseline is what turns the thesis into evidence and steers the next round of capital.
Confirm on the ground · Run camera traps and species counts on a fixed schedule and track movement between the parcel and the habitat beside it.

The deployment reading is a screening lens layered on the Land Score — it points capital at the land where it builds the most connectivity, and each move is paired with the ground-truth step that confirms it.

How it compares

2ndpercentile · all readings worldwide

Ranked against 100 readings · all readings so far

Reads below most of all 100 readings logged so far — stronger than 2%. Freedom from development pressure is its strongest signal here (96th percentile), ecology its weakest (1st).

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

3rd

Soil

1st

Ecology

1st

Climate

6th

Low pressure

96th

Percentiles compare this reading against the growing corpus of public TERRA readings in like land — not all land on Earth. They sharpen as the wall grows.

The physical frame

Climate, water, soil, and shape — what the land is made of and what moves across it.

Climate · to 2050

Annual rainfall, 2004–2024 · mm

26.9°C

Mean temp

+0.9°C

2050 Δ temp

+92%

2050 Δ rain

Exposure · High

2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 0.9°C warmer than today's, with 92% more rain. Expect is the honest verb: this is the middle of a range of futures, not a certainty — so design to the range, not to today.

Water

13mm/yr

Rainfall

+164.2%

20-yr trend

—km

To watercourse

Soil · 0–30 cm

3.2g/kg

Org. carbon

8.2

55%

Sand

25%

Clay

Sandy clay loam

Terrain & cover

451m

Elevation

0.2°

Mean slope

Forest

Built

Bare / sparse 100%

The living surface

What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.

Ecology

Recorded wildlife observations

GBIF · the global species-record archive

Pandion haliaetus

Pressure

Source unavailable for this parcel.

Forest history · since 2000

Tree cover 2000

0.0%

Cover lost

Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11

Best-fit regenerative model

Regenerative village

36 / 100 fit

A community sited on the working matrix.

Larger, accessible, and buildable near existing settlement, this matrix land has room for a regenerative community that keeps the habitat edges intact and restores the rest.

Larger, accessible, buildable land near existing settlement — room for a regenerative community that leaves the habitat edges intact and restores the rest.

451 m elevation0% forest0.2° slope13 mm rain/yr

Also consider · Regenerative agroforestry estate (29)

A published, rules-based suggestion read from the parcel's own indicators — forest, water, slope, access, and its place in the network. It names the shape of project the land is already set up to carry; confirm it against tenure, soils, and what you know from the ground. These fit numbers rank whole project models against each other; the deployment lens's hospitality fit (30/100) is a different scale that asks only whether a small lodge could fund the stewardship here — the two need not match.

What to do

01
Build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.
First dry season
Water, not the yearly total, is the limiting factor here; storage and drought-tolerant choices decide what the land can carry.
Confirm on the ground · Measure the springs, wells, and watercourses at the end of the dry season, when supply is at its lowest — that is the number to plan against.
02
Design to the 2050 climate projections rather than today's conditions.
First year
The land is strongly exposed to projected change, so species, water storage, and infrastructure should be chosen for the conditions ahead.
Confirm on the ground · Cross-check the projections against the memory of long-time residents on how the seasons have already shifted here.
03
Carry out a field biodiversity survey to see what the records miss.
First year
A thin record here usually reflects little survey effort, not little life; what actually lives on the parcel shapes both its value and its constraints.
Confirm on the ground · Have an ecologist survey across seasons; local naturalists and birders often already know the site.
04
Start with a ground survey, then sequence the foundational work — water, then soil, then access.
First year
This is the longest game; the early foundational work is what makes everything downstream possible.
Confirm on the ground · Survey the parcel, then stage the work by permanence — water and structure first, plantings last.

Questions to sit with

If the seasons here shift as the models expect, which of your intentions for the land still hold — and which need rethinking now?
Are you here to hold this land as it is, to work it, or to help it change — and does the reading above serve that intention?
If the work succeeds, what do the water, the canopy, and the people around this land look like a generation from now — and what is the first condition that has to change for that to begin?
Where does this reading disagree with what you have seen walking the land? That disagreement is the first thing to check on the ground.

These are not data gaps — they are the questions the data cannot answer.

Ask the analyst

Answers are grounded in this parcel's reading and tagged by basis — observed is measured, derived is reasoned from measurements, estimated is model-based, and unknown is said plainly. The conversation stays in your browser.

Reading this land to

Talk it through with us

This reading is built from satellite and open data. It cannot see soil biology, legal tenure, or what you already know from walking the land — a 30-minute call tests the reading against the ground and sequences the work. No cost, no obligation.

Schedule a 30-min call →See services or email us

Sources & method · 15 layers→

Biodiversity — GBIF

Occurrence records (count + top species)

point · live

Mixed CC0 / CC-BY / CC-BY-NC (per dataset)

Adaptation layer — OpenStreetMap

Nearest fire station, emergency post, flood/coastal defence, water works, monitoring station, coastline — mapped presence, not effectiveness

feature · live

ODbL 1.0

Heritage presence — public record

Recorded historic/heritage features within 10 km — generalized to counts, classes and distance bands; never coordinates

landscape (10 km) · live

ODbL 1.0

Place memory — Wikipedia

Named places and features of the surrounding landscape (titles + distances)

article · live

CC BY-SA 4.0 (titles/facts)

Place — OpenStreetMap / Nominatim

Nominatim reverse geocode

settlement · live

ODbL 1.0

Terrain — AWS Terrarium (Mapzen)

Terrarium elevation tiles

~10 m (z12) · 2017

Open (attribution)

Climate — Open-Meteo

Archive 2004–2024 + MPI-ESM1-2-XR to 2050

~9 km · 2004–2024 / 2045–2049

CC-BY 4.0 (data); non-commercial API tier

Soil — ISRIC SoilGrids v2

SoilGrids v2.0 (SOC, pH, sand, clay; 0–30 cm)

250 m · 2020

CC-BY 4.0

Land cover — ESA WorldCover

WorldCover 2021 v200

10 m · 2021

CC-BY 4.0 (commercial promotion: notify due@esa.int)

Surface water — JRC Global Surface Water

Global Surface Water v1.4 — occurrence & seasonality

30 m · 1984–2021

Copernicus / open (attribution)

Forest loss — Hansen Global Forest Change

Global Forest Change (tree cover 2000 + annual loss)

~30 m · 2000–2023

CC-BY 4.0

Watershed — Global Watersheds (MERIT-Hydro)

Upstream basin + downstream flowpath (screening hydrography)

~90 m · MERIT-Hydro 2019

Open service, no warranty; engine open source (delineator)

Population — WorldPop

Gridded population 2020 (parcel + 5 km ring sums)

~100 m · 2020

CC-BY 4.0

Seismicity — USGS earthquake catalog

M ≥ 5 events within 100 km, past 50 years

event · live catalog

US public domain (cite USGS)

Governance — public map record + Wikidata

Administrative hierarchy + structured facts of the governing unit

admin unit · live / Atlas data year 2022

ODbL 1.0 / CC0 / PNUD-UCR publication (attribution)

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, the governance record, the thermal read, the biomass map, the siting geometry, the hazard screen, modis fire history — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Thu, 17 Sep 2026 18:35:32 GMT · 19.1s · synthesized by TERRA.