Land Intelligence Report

Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301

6 ha · 8.3951, -83.2879 · A plan would change this land's answer.

Terrain · shaded relief — Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301
250 m
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301
250 m
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 · ESA / Copernicus

The reading in full

This 6-hectare parcel near Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301 is workable land whose plan must come before the capital. It scores 54 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: The rainfall archive shows an unusually steep drying signal — verify before relying on it. A swing this large more often reflects a data artifact or measurement change than real climate; water planning should wait on local records rather than build on this number. 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. This ground has a recorded seismic history. Repeated strong earthquakes within reach shape how anything here should be built — seismic design codes, slope stability under shaking, and insurance all follow from it.

Where the upside lies: 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. A watercourse lies close to the parcel. Nearby surface water improves access to irrigation and supply and adds habitat value, though rights and distance still affect how usable it is.

The wider readings: Rainfall is very high. Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter. The land is gently rolling. Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads. Biodiversity records are moderate. There is a reasonable but incomplete picture of local wildlife; a ground survey would sharpen any conservation or regulatory assessment. Soil organic carbon is moderate. The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use. Road and town access are close. Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices. 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. Official Costa Rican record places this in Puerto Jiménez, Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas. National cadastral and administrative data ground the parcel in the legal record — the basis for title, permitting, and tax diligence.

What the land is telling us: The land reads as holding rather than actively regenerating: the standing cover is intact, but the water or vegetation signal is under strain, so the trajectory turns on how the coming dry years are managed. 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. 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 workable land whose plan must come before the capital. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

The verdict

54out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

A plan would change this land's answer.

Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301

Frontier tier · 54 conservation priority

Five readings

Water71strong
Soil56fair
Ecology63fair
Climate10watch
Pressure71strong

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

Not yet ranked — the wall is still too small for a fair cohort. It sharpens as readings land.

Coverage

21 of 28 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record +4.

Where the capital goes

54/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 61

Best-fit model

Corridor anchor reserve

51 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area
5.9ha
Elevation
153m
130–175 m
Slope
5.6°
Buildable bench
not read
Forest cover
100%
Canopy height
not read
Rainfall
4,506mm/yr
-40% over 20 yr
Warming to 2050
+1.3°C
rain +47%
Soil carbon
29.0g/kg
pH 5.4
Nearest road
0.4km
Species records
97records
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 4,506 mm of rain falls here in a year. 100% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 5.6° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 6 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Sombrerillo, Quebrada Sambos). A road runs against the boundary, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1.3 °C and +47% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holdingthe canopy has held while the rain record fell -39.5%.

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 100% tree cover beside the network and a conservation priority of 54, 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

6 hectares at Puerto Jiménez of gentle land around 153 m. The ground reads 100% under canopy. Water shapes it — 4,506 mm of rain a year, 6 traced watercourses. Sparsely peopled — 283 neighbours within 5 km, governed from Puerto Jiménez.

Its vocationprotect

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 100% tree cover beside the network and a conservation priority of 54, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.

153 m elevation100% forest5.6° slope4,506 mm rain/yrFrontier tier — outside the mapped network
Its trajectoryholding, but dryingthe canopy has held while the rain record fell -39.5%.

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 parcel from orbit

Finding the latest clear satellite pass…

Reading the land's record…

The people around it

People within 5 km
283 people
WorldPop, 2020
People on the parcel
1 people
Hospital / clinic
16 km
Clínica CCSS Puerto Jiménez
School
1.6 km
Fuel
not read
Airstrip
15.7 km
Aeropuerto de Puerto Jiménez
Power grid
not read

“Not read” means nothing of that kind is mapped within the search radius. That is a gap in the map, not a zero.

Who governs this land

Costa Rica · Puntarenas · Puerto Jiménez

Human development
0.74
HDI of the canton, 2022 · PNUD/UCR
Population
8,789
of the local governing unit
Area
720.4 km²
of the local governing unit

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.

103 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or more within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7.1 — most recent M5.5, 2025 (USGS).

What the record remembers

The named places and features the public encyclopedia holds around this land: the recorded memory, not the whole memory.

  • Cabo Matapalo1.8 km
  • Osa Mixed Wildlife Refuge6 km

No heritage features recorded within 10 km of this parcel.

Locations are deliberately withheld; presence is shown at landscape scale only. Costa Rica: archaeological finds are state property (Ley 6703); the Museo Nacional keeps the site registry and development projects carry a SETENA assessment duty. Absence of information here is not evidence of absence.

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 · observed, measured from satellite or map data · official, from a public or state record.

  • estimated

    This parcel collects the water of Its watershedscreening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)

  • observed

    This parcel is within reach of Río Sombrerillonearest mapped water 0.49 km

  • observed

    This parcel is within reach of Quebrada Sambos

  • official

    This parcel sits beside Corredor Biológico Osa9.4 km awayPNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC

  • official

    Corredor Biológico Osa is designed to connect Parque Nacional CorcovadoPNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC

  • official

    Corredor Biológico Osa is designed to connect Parque Nacional Piedras BlancasPNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC

  • official

    This parcel answers to Puerto JiménezHDI 0.74 (2022)

  • official

    Puerto Jiménez sits in Puntarenas

  • official

    Puntarenas sits in Costa Rica

  • official

    This parcel stands on ground that has felt Seismic history103 quakes ≥ M5 within 100 km in 50 yr

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. 1

    parcel

    6 ha inside the boundary

    a standing block of forest

    100% tree cover

  2. 2

    corridor

    Corredor Biológico Osa

    core of the corridor

    9.4 km to the corridor

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 · observed, measured from satellite or map data · estimated, from a model, not a measurement · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · official, from a public or state record · scientific, from a published study.

The forest here has held for a generation.

  1. recordedThis canopy has held: 96% 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 water here is thinning.

  1. observedThe twenty-year rain record moved -39.5% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
  2. estimatedDry spells head toward ~24 days by 2050 — water security, storage, and drought-tolerant planting become the design constraints here.
  3. derivedNote the disagreement: the observed archive moved -39.5%, while the 2050 model says +47%. Neither cancels the other — the archive is what happened, the model is one projection. Design for the envelope: storage for the dry record, drainage for the wet projection.

What to doPrice water storage into any plan and verify the dry-season sources on the ground.

Bears on any plan that needs water · medium confidence

Abundant water is also a legal shape on this land.

  1. observed6 watercourses are traced on and around this parcel.
  2. officialCosta Rica's Ley Forestal 7575 (art. 33) protects riparian strips — roughly 10–15 m along rivers in rural land, up to 50 m on steep banks and around springs.
  3. derivedMultiply the strips by the watercourses and a material share of the parcel is likely untouchable by law — which is a constraint for building and a gift for conservation.

What to doMap the statutory buffer zones before pricing or siting anything — the buildable area is smaller than the deed.

Bears on how much of the land is actually usable · medium confidence

This is self-reliance country.

  1. scientific283 people live within 5 km — this is a place with few neighbours.
  2. derivedThe nearest hospital or clinic is 16 km away — emergencies, energy, and every delivery run on that distance.
  3. derivedRemote land is cheaper to buy and more expensive to run: generator or solar, first-aid capability, and labor that must travel become line items.

What to doBudget the remoteness honestly (energy, medical response, transport) before it surprises you.

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

100% tree cover on 4,506 mm of rain; 0% of the tree cover lost since 2000.

Keep the canopy whole; the loop is running the right way on its own.

The edge and the road

access → clearing at the edge → more edge → more access

holding

road 0.4 km; 0% tree cover lost since 2000.

Decide what the road is for before anything else: a gate, a planted edge and a written access rule are the cheapest interventions on this land.

Reading the place

This 6-hectare parcel near Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301 is workable land whose plan must come before the capital, scoring 54 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that the rainfall archive shows an unusually steep drying signal — verify before relying on it. Its main strength is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover. The first move: build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.

Risklow confidence

The rainfall archive shows an unusually steep drying signal — verify before relying on it.

A swing this large more often reflects a data artifact or measurement change than real climate; water planning should wait on local records rather than build on this number.

The archive's linear trend reads about 39% lower over 20 years (2004–2024) — outside the range the engine treats as dependable.

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: +1.3 °C mean temperature, +47% rainfall. Exposure rated High.

Riskhigh confidence

This ground has a recorded seismic history.

Repeated strong earthquakes within reach shape how anything here should be built — seismic design codes, slope stability under shaking, and insurance all follow from it.

103 earthquakes ≥ M5 within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7.1, most recent M5.5 in 2025 (USGS catalog).

Opportunitylow confidence

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.

100% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping). Naturalness is not verified.

Opportunityhigh confidence

A watercourse lies close to the parcel.

Nearby surface water improves access to irrigation and supply and adds habitat value, though rights and distance still affect how usable it is.

Nearest mapped watercourse is about 0.49 km away (Río Sombrerillo).

Waterhigh confidence

Rainfall is very high.

Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter.

4,506 mm of rain per year. Nearest mapped watercourse is about 0.49 km away.

Terrainhigh confidence

The land is gently rolling.

Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads.

Mean elevation 153 m, mean slope 6°, 45 m of relief.

Biodiversitymedium confidence

Biodiversity records are moderate.

There is a reasonable but incomplete picture of local wildlife; a ground survey would sharpen any conservation or regulatory assessment.

97 biodiversity records nearby, including Caracara plancus and Cathartes aura (GBIF, the global species-record archive).

Soilmedium confidence

Soil organic carbon is moderate.

The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use.

29 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay loam texture, pH 5.4 (ISRIC SoilGrids).

Accesshigh confidence

Road and town access are close.

Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices.

About 0.35 km to the nearest road.

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.

283 people live within 5 km (WorldPop 2020); nearest hospital or clinic 16 km (Clínica CCSS Puerto Jiménez); school 1.6 km; airstrip 15.7 km.

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.

Costa Rica · Puntarenas · Puerto Jiménez — canton HDI 0.74 (2022, PNUD/UCR), 8,789 people in the governing unit.

Accessmedium confidence

Official Costa Rican record places this in Puerto Jiménez, Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas.

National cadastral and administrative data ground the parcel in the legal record — the basis for title, permitting, and tax diligence.

Jurisdiction: Puerto Jiménez, Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas. Source: SNIT.

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

The land reads as holding rather than actively regenerating: the standing cover is intact, but the water or vegetation signal is under strain, so the trajectory turns on how the coming dry years are managed.

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. 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 workable land whose plan must come before the capital. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

54Conservation priority
FrontierCore habitat

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.

Nearest declared corridor: Corredor Biológico Osa, about 9 km · Área de Conservación Osa (ACOSA)

This reads as intact habitat to secure, scoring 54 out of 100 for conservation priority. It carries standalone value outside the mapped network — worth holding on its own terms. A small, low-footprint operation (fit 61/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

61/100
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.

Corridorlow confidence

The nearest declared corridor is the Corredor Biológico Osa, about 9 km away (screening).

The parcel reads as outside the mapped network, so its connectivity value comes from what it holds and what protected land sits beside it rather than a corridor mandate. That corridor links Parque Nacional Corcovado, Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas, Humedal Térraba-Sierpe.

Nearest PNCB screening extent ~9 km. Extents are approximate — confirm against SINAC/PNCB.

Conservationmedium confidence

This reads as intact habitat — the priority is to secure it, not rebuild it.

Standing natural forest is far cheaper to protect than to restore, and holding it inside a corridor keeps the connection open. Securing tenure and legal protection is where capital does the most here.

100% tree cover.

Hospitalitymedium confidence

A small hospitality operation could carry the conservation here.

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 61/100, drawing on standing forest. Site any building on the already-worked ground, not the habitat.

Capital moves

  1. 01

    Secure this land first — through purchase, or a conservation easement that survives a change of owner.

    Before committing

    Intact corridor habitat holds its value only while it stays intact; locking in protection before the land turns over is the move capital cannot undo.

    Confirm on the ground · Confirm title and boundaries with a local lawyer, then scope a servidumbre ecológica (ecological easement) and FONAFIFO's PSA forest-protection payment (Pago por Servicios Ambientales — Costa Rica's national payment for keeping forest standing) against the parcel.

  2. 02

    Protect the standing forest and remove the active threats to it.

    First visit

    The habitat is already here; the work is to keep it — stopping clearing, fire, and hunting pressure holds far more value than any planting would add.

    Confirm on the ground · Walk the boundary for signs of encroachment, fire, and hunting; agree the protection terms with neighbours who share the edge.

  3. 03

    Site a small, low-footprint hospitality operation on the already-worked ground to fund the stewardship.

    Once the land is secured

    A modest operation on the already-worked ground earns the revenue that pays for the restoration and the guardians, without spending the habitat it depends on.

    Confirm on the ground · Model the operation at a size the land can carry, keep it off the habitat, and check the Certificado de Sostenibilidad Turística (CST) and local zoning before designing anything.

  4. 04

    Set a connectivity baseline and re-read it — camera traps aimed at the movement the corridor was declared to carry.

    Ongoing

    Funders and partners judge a corridor by whether wildlife actually moves through 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, aimed at the connectivity this corridor was declared for — the peninsular corridor holding Corcovado's lowland rainforest in contact with Piedras Blancas across the Osa.

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. Corridor extents are approximate PNCB screening footprints; confirm a parcel against the official SINAC/PNCB record.

The physical frame

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

Climate · to 2050

Annual rainfall, 20042024 · mm

25.3°C
Mean temp
+1.3°C
2050 Δ temp
+47%
2050 Δ rain

Exposure · High

2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.3°C warmer than today's, with 47% 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

4,506mm/yr
Rainfall
-39.5%
20-yr trend
0.5km
To watercourse

Río Sombrerillo · Quebrada Sambos · Quebrada · Quebrada Carbonera

Soil · 0–30 cm

29.0g/kg
Org. carbon
5.4
pH
32%
Sand
34%
Clay

Clay loam

Terrain & cover

153m
Elevation
5.6°
Mean slope
100%
Forest
0%
Built
Tree cover 100%

The living surface

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

Ecology

97
Recorded wildlife observations
GBIF · the global species-record archive

Caracara plancus · Cathartes aura · Coragyps atratus · Columbina talpacoti

Pressure

0.4km
To road
km
To settlement

Forest history · since 2000

96%
Tree cover 2000
0.0%
Cover lost

Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11

Record & context

What the state and its institutions say about this ground.

Costa Rica ecological corridor

Nearby
Corridor
~9 km away
Área de Conservación Osa (ACOSA)
Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Osa

The peninsular corridor holding Corcovado's lowland rainforest in contact with Piedras Blancas across the Osa.

Connects · Parque Nacional Corcovado · Parque Nacional Piedras Blancas · Humedal Térraba-Sierpe

PNCB / SINAC — Corredores Biológicos (screening reference) · approximate screening extent — confirm against the official SINAC / PNCB record

See the corridor network →

Costa Rica land record

Puerto Jiménez, Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas
Jurisdiction

SNIT Costa Rica (IGN / IDECORI) · official national data — verify title & permits locally

Regional illness · dengue

High
Recorded burden
rank 9 of 72 cantons
5,964
Notifications 2013–2018
~994/yr
2,472
Worst year
2013

Puerto Jiménez district (recorded under Golfito in this window) · nationally, Costa Rica recorded 31,259 dengue notifications in 2024.

OpenDengue (PAHO / Ministerio de Salud record) · notification counts (suspected + probable + confirmed (non-severe & severe)), not population-adjusted — historical burden geography, not the current season. Ground-truth with the Ministerio de Salud's weekly bulletin.

Future · the horizons the engine has read

Now

Mean temperature
25.3 °C
Rain, latest year (2024)
4,651 mm
Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
0
Longest dry spell
7 days
Mean elevation
153 m

The rain row is one year alone — the Water panel's 4,506 mm is the long mean, and with the record down 39% in twenty years, recent years sit below it by design.

2050

Temperature shift
+1.3 °C+1.3 to +1.4 °C across 4 models
Rainfall shift
+47 %+11 to +47 % across 4 models
Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
19 (+19)
Longest dry spell
24 days (+17)
Exposure
Higha hard projected shift — plan around it
Resilience reading
10 / 100

The resilience reading is the climate pillar from the five dials above — one number, shown here beside the horizon it scores.

The headline projection is one model family (CMIP6 · MPI-ESM1-2-XR via Open-Meteo); the range beside it spans 4 CMIP6 HighResMIP models. All of them run one emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5) — several models, not several futures. The 2045–2049 window stands in for 2050, and expect is the honest word. Intermediate horizons (2030 · 2040) and 2100 are not shown because the engine has not read them — TERRA does not interpolate between measurements.

Best-fit regenerative model

Corridor anchor reserve

51 / 100 fit

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open.

With 100% tree cover beside the network and a conservation priority of 54, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.

High-value habitat inside the connectivity network. The move is to secure it — purchase or easement — so the corridor it anchors stays unbroken.

153 m elevation100% forest5.6° slope4,506 mm rain/yrcorridor ~9 km

Also consider · Watershed protection (46) · Ecolodge / retreat (40)

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 (61/100) is a different scale that asks only whether a small lodge could fund the stewardship here — the two need not match.

What to do

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 03

    Ground-truth what the canopy actually is before assuming forest value.

    First visit

    Satellite land-cover cannot separate natural forest from a monoculture plantation, and the difference decides the conservation and carbon value.

    Confirm on the ground · Walk the stand: one species in rows is plantation; mixed ages and species with natural regeneration is forest. A botanist can confirm.

  4. 04

    Confirm soil and water on the ground, then design to what the land can carry.

    First visit

    The land is workable, but the plan has to be built to its limits rather than around a hoped-for use.

    Confirm on the ground · Ground-truth the key constraints before committing to a use, then size the plan to them.

Questions to sit with

  • At the end of the dry season, where does water still hold on this land — and what would keep it there a month longer?
  • Standing under the canopy, is it one species or many — and which parts would you protect rather than replant?
  • 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.

Sources & method · 21 layers
Water, roads & protected areas — OpenStreetMap

Overpass (waterways, highways, places, protected areas)

vector · live
ODbL 1.0
Biodiversity — GBIF

Occurrence records (count + top species)

point · live
Mixed CC0 / CC-BY / CC-BY-NC (per dataset)
Infrastructure reach — OpenStreetMap

Nearest hospital, school, fuel, airport, port, power grid

feature · live
ODbL 1.0
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)
Costa Rica territorial record — SNIT

Administrative units, cadastral parcels, agrological land-capability, protected areas, Holdridge life zones (WFS)

vector (1:5 000 base) · national SDI (rolling)
SNIT Condiciones Generales de Uso (attribution)
Ecological corridors — PNCB / SINAC (Costa Rica)

Declared biological corridors (bundled screening reference of official corridors; approximate extents — confirm against SINAC/PNCB)

screening extent · PNCB (rolling)
Public programme (SINAC); reference compiled for screening
Regional illness — dengue burden (Costa Rica)

Dengue notifications by cantón 2013–2018 (suspected + probable + confirmed) + national series to 2024; bundled OpenDengue V1.3 extract — historical burden geography, not the current season

cantón · 2013–2018 (cantón) / 2024 (national)
CC-BY 4.0 (OpenDengue)
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)
Indigenous territories — official record (Costa Rica)

Official decree-delimited territory boundaries (legal-constraint overlay; never scored or ranked)

official boundary · decree delimitations (rolling)
SNIT/FONAFIFO public services (attribution); decree facts public law

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: Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record, the thermal read, the underground atlas, the hazard screen, modis fire history — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Thu, 10 Sep 2026 07:14:16 GMT · 18.4s · synthesized by TERRA.

Generated Thu, 10 Sep 2026 07:14:16 GMT · synthesized by TERRA · Dear Wise Earth.