Public reading

Shaded-relief view of the land around Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520, the parcel boundary drawn in gold1 ha inside the gold line
250 m
Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520

1 ha · 19.000, -99.053 · Mexico

61out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

Worth restoring — and worth the patience.

53rd percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 15 conservation priority

Water
100
Soil
51
Ecology
17
Climate
36
Pressure
99

14 of 21 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: osm_overpass, sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc…

The reading in full

This 1-hectare parcel near Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520 is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 61 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. Hazard screening rates this district high for volcano, cyclone, wildfire. A high screening class means the hazard must be taken into account in planning and design — it is a division-scale flag from mixed-vintage hazard sets, not a site assessment. Commission local hazard mapping before siting anything permanent. 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.

The wider readings: Rainfall is high and supports rain-fed use. There is enough water for most crops and forestry with little or no irrigation; dry-season storage still helps. 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 parcel sits at high elevation. Higher ground is cooler, which changes crop suitability and can ease heat stress, but may add access and frost considerations. 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 moderate. The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use. 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 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 with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520
250 m
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520
250 m
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

61out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

Worth restoring — and worth the patience.

Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520

53rd percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 15 conservation priority

Five readings

Water100strong
Soil51fair
Ecology17watch
Climate36watch
Pressure99strong

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

53rdpercentile

Neotropic · against 93 readings · 54th of all 100

Coverage

14 of 21 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Silent: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar +4.

Where the capital goes

15/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 42

Best-fit model

Upper-watershed research station

41 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area
1.2ha
Elevation
1,957m
1,940–1,985 m
Slope
9.8°
Buildable bench
not read
Forest cover
31%
Canopy height
not read
Rainfall
2,688mm/yr
+36% over 20 yr
Warming to 2050
+1.7°C
rain -25%
Soil carbon
25.1g/kg
pH 6.2
Nearest road
not read
Species records
0records
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 2,688 mm of rain falls here in a year. 31% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 9.8° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. By 2050 the models expect +1.7 °C and -25% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holdingthe canopy record shows no meaningful loss in a generation.

Guard the headwaters; study what they hold. At 1,957 m with 31% tree cover, this reads as intact montane headwater forest — high-value habitat whose biodiversity and water function justify guarding it and studying what it holds. 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

1 hectares at Tepoztlán of gentle land around 1,957 m. The ground reads 31% under canopy. Water shapes it — 2,688 mm of rain a year. Governed from Tepoztlán.

Its vocationresearch

Guard the headwaters; study what they hold. At 1,957 m with 31% tree cover, this reads as intact montane headwater forest — high-value habitat whose biodiversity and water function justify guarding it and studying what it holds.

1,957 m elevation31% forest9.8° slope2,688 mm rain/yrFrontier tier — outside the mapped network
Its trajectoryholdingthe 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.

Sources & method · 14 layers
Biodiversity — GBIF

Occurrence records (count + top species)

point · live
Mixed CC0 / CC-BY / CC-BY-NC (per dataset)
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)
Hazard screening — ThinkHazard!

Multi-hazard classes at admin-division scale (screening-grade; hazard sets ~2015–2020)

admin division · division report (mixed vintages)
GFDRR open (attribution)
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 population grid — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:16:39 GMT · 17.1s · synthesized by TERRA.