Terpano
Reading the world

Working landscapes

A working landscape shows you what the land can be made to yield, and at what cost.

Crops are climate constraints made visible. Olives tolerate drought and poor soil but not hard frost. Citrus is frost-sensitive and thirsty, so growing it on terraces means the water is managed rather than merely received. Terracing this steep is an irrigation structure before it is a field: each level holds a few centimetres of standing water and passes the surplus down.

Boundaries and outbuildings carry the rest. Living hedges rather than fences mean long settlement and year-round rain; walls this dense mean the fields were cleared by hand and the stone had nowhere to go. A shelterbelt planted dead straight means relentless wind. A granary on stone mushrooms is keeping rats out, and a removable thatch cap is keeping rain off the grain.

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