Land Intelligence Report
Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520
1 ha · 19.0003, -99.0529 · Worth restoring — and worth the patience.
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.
Physical risk and adaptation
| Hazard | Category | Screening class | Adaptation mapped | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| River flood | acute · climate-related | low | adaptation layer not read | quiet |
| Urban flood | acute · climate-related | low | adaptation layer not read | quiet |
| Coastal flood | acute · climate-related | no data | adaptation layer not read | quiet |
| Earthquake | geophysical · not climate-related | medium | adaptation layer not read | watch |
| Landslide | acute · climate-related | medium | adaptation layer not read | watch |
| Tsunami | geophysical · not climate-related | no data | adaptation layer not read | quiet |
| Volcano | geophysical · not climate-related | high | adaptation layer not read | watch |
| Cyclone | acute · climate-related | high | adaptation layer not read | watch |
| Water scarcity | chronic · climate-related | low | adaptation layer not read | quiet |
| Extreme heat | chronic · climate-related | very low | adaptation layer not read | quiet |
| Wildfire | acute · climate-related | high | adaptation layer not read | watch |
- Under high classes
- 1 ha · 3 classes
- Fire response
- not read
- Emergency response
- not read
Exposure as quantities, never as money: response minutes assume 40 km/h on rural roads, straight-line distance. The district class covers the whole parcel, so hectares under a high class are the parcel's own area.
Screening classes at district scale (ThinkHazard/GFDRR, hazard sets ~2015–2020, Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico). Adaptation is mapped presence in OpenStreetMap within graded radii — the condition and design standard of the works are not read.A reading of “buffered” is not a reading of “safe”.
The verdict
Worth restoring — and worth the patience.
Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520
Frontier tier · 15 conservation priority
Five readings
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
Not yet ranked — the wall is still too small for a fair cohort. It sharpens as readings land.
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
Frontierhospitality fit 42
Best-fit model
Upper-watershed research station
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 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.
Holding — the 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.
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.
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 water’s position
What arrives here is decided upstream; what happens here is felt downstream. The map in the Land tab can draw both.
Screening hydrography, never a legal drainage determination.
Who governs this land
México · Morelos · Tepoztlán
What the land is exposed to — and what stands against it
- Earthquakewatchscreens mediumadaptation layer not read
- Landslidewatchscreens mediumadaptation layer not read
- Volcanowatchscreens highadaptation layer not read
- Cyclonewatchscreens highadaptation layer not read
- Wildfirewatchscreens highadaptation layer not read
- Under high classes
- 1 ha · 3 classes
- Fire response
- not read
- Emergency response
- not read
Exposure as quantities, never as money: response minutes assume 40 km/h on rural roads, straight-line distance. The district class covers the whole parcel, so hectares under a high class are the parcel's own area.
Screening classes at district scale (ThinkHazard/GFDRR, hazard sets ~2015–2020) read beside what OpenStreetMap has mapped within graded radii. Presence, not effectiveness: the condition of a levee or the crew of a fire station is not read. “Buffered” is not “safe”; “not read” is honest, not zero.
6 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or more within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7.1 — most recent M5, 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.
- Santo Domingo Ocotitlán1.6 km
- Amatlán de Quetzalcóatl2.9 km
- Meztitla3.6 km
- Meztitla Scout Camp School3.6 km
- Santiago Tepetlapa (Morelos)4.5 km
- San Juan Tlacotenco4.7 km
- El Tepozteco5.1 km
- Sierra de Tepoztlán5.1 km
15 recorded heritage features within 10 km, nearest 2–5 km — ruins, monument, archaeological site, memorial, monastery.
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 · recorded, from the historical archive.
- estimated
This parcel collects the water of Its watershed— screening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)
- estimated
This parcel sends its water down Downstream flowpath6.1 km mapped below the parcel— screening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)
- official
This parcel answers to Tepoztlán
- official
Tepoztlán sits in Morelos
- official
Morelos sits in México
- recorded
This parcel carries the traces of Recorded heritage landscape15 recorded features within 10 km— public record only — absence is not evidence of absence
- estimated
This parcel is screened as exposed to Volcanohigh (screening)— screening class at admin-division scale
- estimated
This parcel is screened as exposed to Cyclonehigh (screening)— screening class at admin-division scale
- estimated
This parcel is screened as exposed to Wildfirehigh (screening)— screening class at admin-division scale
- official
This parcel stands on ground that has felt Seismic history6 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
parcel
1 ha inside the boundary
forest and open ground, mixed
31% tree cover
- 2
catchment
its catchment
a sink: a large country drains through it
6 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.
The forest here has held for a generation.
- recordedThis canopy has held: 45% 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 17 — but it leans on zero 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 +36.2% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
- observedOn 9.8° average slope, pulsed rain becomes runoff energy — erosion and flash flow, not just supply.
- estimatedThat energy leaves along a mapped 6.1 km downstream path — what this parcel's cover holds back, the people below never have to absorb.
- derivedNote the disagreement: the observed archive moved +36.2%, while the 2050 model says -25%. Neither cancels the other — the archive is what happened, the model is one projection. Design for the envelope: drainage for the wet record, storage for the dry projection.
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 61 against a conservation priority of 15.
- 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
Height is this land's climate insurance.
- observedAt 1,957 m, today's mean sits at 17.1°C.
- estimatedThe +1.7°C projected by 2050 arrives on that cool baseline — roughly 5 hot days a year here while lowland sites cross heat thresholds this parcel never reaches.
- derivedAs the lowlands warm, land that stays temperate does double work: livable for people, refuge for species moving uphill.
What to doTreat elevation as an appreciating part of the asset — and design for the species arriving from below, not only the ones here now.
Bears on the decades ahead · 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
running toward regeneration
31% tree cover on 2,688 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
69% open ground on a 9.8° 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 1-hectare parcel near Tepoztlán, Morelos, 62520 is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside, scoring 61 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that this area is highly exposed to projected climate change by 2050. The first move: design to the 2050 climate projections rather than today's conditions.
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: +1.7 °C mean temperature, -25% rainfall. Exposure rated High.
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.
3 of 11 screened hazards rate high in Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico (ThinkHazard/GFDRR, screening-grade).
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.
6 earthquakes ≥ M5 within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7.1, most recent M5 in 2025 (USGS catalog).
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.
2,688 mm of rain per year. The archive's 20-year trend reads about +36% — a swing that size deserves verification against local records before it informs any plan.
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 6.1 km downstream of it (MERIT-Hydro screening hydrography).
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.
Mean elevation 1,957 m, mean slope 10°, 45 m of relief.
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 0 biodiversity records nearby (GBIF, the global species-record archive).
Soil organic carbon is moderate.
The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use.
25.1 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, loam texture, pH 6.2 (ISRIC SoilGrids).
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.
México · Morelos · Tepoztlán.
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 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.
Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment
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 a partial patch that extends the network's reach, scoring 15 out of 100 for conservation priority. It carries standalone value outside the mapped network — worth holding on its own terms.
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.
This reads as a partial patch — enhancing it extends the network's reach.
A partly-forested parcel works as a stepping stone between the standing habitat around it: thickening its cover and connecting it to the neighbours widens the habitat that species can actually move through. No declared corridor is mapped here — the network in question is the nearby forest itself.
31% tree cover.
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 42/100, 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 committingRestoration 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 yearAs 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.
OngoingFunders 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.
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
Exposure · High
2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.7°C warmer than today's, with 25% less 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
Soil · 0–30 cm
Loam
Terrain & cover
The living surface
What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.
Ecology
Pressure
Source unavailable for this parcel.
Forest history · since 2000
Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11
Future · the horizons the engine has read
Now
- Mean temperature
- 17.1 °C
- Rain, latest year (2024)
- 2,819 mm
- Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
- 0
- Longest dry spell
- 50 days
- Mean elevation
- 1,957 m
The rain row is one year alone — the Water panel's 2,688 mm is the long mean, and with the record up 36% in twenty years, recent years sit above it by design.
2050
- Temperature shift
- +1.7 °C
- Rainfall shift
- -25 %
- Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
- 5 (+5)
- Longest dry spell
- 40 days (-10)
- Exposure
- High — a hard projected shift — plan around it
- Resilience reading
- 36 / 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 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
Upper-watershed research station
41 / 100 fitGuard 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.
Intact montane forest at the top of a watershed, rich enough to justify a small research-and-education presence that funds protection of the water tower below.
Also consider · Regenerative agroforestry estate (28) · Watershed protection (26)
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 (42/100) 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
Design to the 2050 climate projections rather than today's conditions.
First yearThe 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.
- 02
Carry out a field biodiversity survey to see what the records miss.
First yearA 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.
- 03
Walk the land to scope the regenerative work before committing capital.
First visitThe foundations are present and the upside is real, but sequencing the work well is what realises it.
Confirm on the ground · Read the water, soil, and cover on the ground, then plan the work from the most permanent layer down.
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.
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 · 14 layers→
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)
Upstream basin + downstream flowpath (screening hydrography)
Multi-hazard classes at admin-division scale (screening-grade; hazard sets ~2015–2020)
M ≥ 5 events within 100 km, past 50 years
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, 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.
Generated Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:16:39 GMT · synthesized by TERRA · Dear Wise Earth.