Land Intelligence Report
Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province
100 ha · 9.6566, -85.0653 · The water is willing. Follow it.
The reading in full
This 100-hectare parcel near Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 57 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.
The risks that most shape a decision here: About 41% of the parcel is permanently under water. This area cannot be built on or farmed without major drainage or fill work, so it reduces the usable land and the cost of developing it. 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.
Where the upside lies: A watercourse runs through the parcel. On-site water supports irrigation, livestock, and habitat and can lower water-supply costs — though it may carry buffer or setback rules worth checking. This land sits on a mapped global hotspot of underground fungal biodiversity. Mycorrhizal networks move nutrients, water, and carbon through the soil; over 90% of these hotspots lie outside protected areas, so intact underground biodiversity here is rare conservation and restoration value that no above-ground survey shows.
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. The land is gently rolling. Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads. The area has a rich record of documented wildlife. High biodiversity adds conservation value, may bring species-protection rules, and can support eco-tourism or habitat-credit programs. 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. Official Costa Rican record places this in Cóbano, Puntarenas, 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: 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 look rich, with a deep record of documented life nearby. 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. Its clearest strength to build from is that a watercourse runs through the parcel.
The verdict
The water is willing. Follow it.
Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province
Frontier tier · 40 conservation priority
Five readings
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
12 of 16 layers answered
Every pillar read from live data.
Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record +1.
Where the capital goes
Frontierhospitality fit 53
Best-fit model
Coastal buffer · blue–green
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 2,856 mm of rain falls here in a year. 52% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 5.4° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 40 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Montezuma, Río Cóbano). A road runs against the boundary, and the nearest settlement is 5.7 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1 °C and +44% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.
Regenerating — almost no tree cover lost since 2000; rainfall up 38% over twenty years.
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
100 hectares at Cóbano of rolling land around 40 m. The ground reads 52% under canopy, 2% built. Water shapes it — 2,856 mm of rain a year, 40 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is Cóbano, 5.66 km away.
Protect the blue–green edge. Low-lying at 40 m, this reads as a coastal or wetland edge — an inference from elevation and water signals, not a measured shoreline distance, so confirm how near the water actually is. If it holds, the play is the buffer: protect and restore it for blue carbon (the carbon coastal wetlands lock away), storm defence, and nursery habitat.
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…
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: observed, measured from satellite or map data · official, from a public or state record.
- observed
This parcel is crossed by Río Montezuma
- observed
This parcel is within reach of Río Cóbano
- official
This parcel sits beside Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas16.1 km away— PNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC
- official
Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas is designed to connect Parque Nacional Carara— PNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC
- official
Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas is designed to connect Cerros de Turrubares— PNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC
- observed
This parcel lives beside Cóbano5.66 km away
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
100 ha inside the boundary
forest and open ground, mixed
52% tree cover
- 2
corridor
Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas
a stepping stone between cores
16.1 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 · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · official, from a public or state record.
The forest here has held for a generation.
- recordedThis canopy has held: 35% cover in 2000, 0.5% 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
Independent instruments agree: water stands on this land.
- recordedThe satellite water archive has watched 4.3% of this parcel go seasonally wet since 1984.
- observedA watercourse crosses the parcel itself.
- observedAnd the rain record has risen 38% in twenty years.
- derived3 separate signals point the same way — this is not one sensor's opinion.
What to doSite anything permanent off the wet ground, and walk the parcel in the rainy season before believing any dry-season visit.
Bears on where anything gets built · high confidence
More water is arriving — and arriving harder.
- observedThe twenty-year rain record moved +38% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
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
Abundant water is also a legal shape on this land.
- observed40 watercourses are traced on and around this parcel.
- 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.
- 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
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
52% tree cover on 2,856 mm of rain; 0.5% of the tree cover lost since 2000, last in 2013.
Keep the canopy whole; the loop is running the right way on its own.
Open ground and soil
bare or grazed ground → compaction → runoff → thinner soil
holding
49% open ground on a 5.4° average slope.
Keep the ground covered through the dry season; rested pasture and cover crops turn this loop around on gentle slopes.
The edge and the road
access → clearing at the edge → more edge → more access
holding
road 0.3 km, settlement 5.7 km; 0.5% 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 100-hectare parcel near Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside, scoring 57 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that about 41% of the parcel is permanently under water. Its main strength is that a watercourse runs through the parcel. The first move: map how water moves and stands across the parcel before siting anything on it.
About 41% of the parcel is permanently under water.
This area cannot be built on or farmed without major drainage or fill work, so it reduces the usable land and the cost of developing it.
41% permanent open water, plus 4% under seasonal water (JRC Global Surface Water, 1984–2021).
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 °C mean temperature, +44% rainfall. Exposure rated High.
A watercourse runs through the parcel.
On-site water supports irrigation, livestock, and habitat and can lower water-supply costs — though it may carry buffer or setback rules worth checking.
A mapped river or stream crosses the parcel (Río Montezuma).
This land sits on a mapped global hotspot of underground fungal biodiversity.
Mycorrhizal networks move nutrients, water, and carbon through the soil; over 90% of these hotspots lie outside protected areas, so intact underground biodiversity here is rare conservation and restoration value that no above-ground survey shows.
100% of the parcel is in the top decile of predicted arbuscular (crop-partner) fungal richness (SPUN Underground Atlas, Van Nuland et al. 2025, 1 km).
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.
2,856 mm of rain per year. A watercourse crosses the parcel. The archive's 20-year trend reads about +38% — a swing that size deserves verification against local records before it informs any plan.
The land is gently rolling.
Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads.
Mean elevation 40 m, mean slope 5°, 129 m of relief.
The area has a rich record of documented wildlife.
High biodiversity adds conservation value, may bring species-protection rules, and can support eco-tourism or habitat-credit programs.
11,380 biodiversity records nearby, including Pelecanus occidentalis and Calocitta formosa (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.
27.8 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay loam texture, pH 5.9 (ISRIC SoilGrids).
Road and town access are close.
Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices.
About 0.31 km to the nearest road, 5.66 km to Cóbano.
Official Costa Rican record places this in Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas.
National cadastral and administrative data ground the parcel in the legal record — the basis for title, permitting, and tax diligence.
Jurisdiction: Cóbano, Puntarenas, 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
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 look rich, with a deep record of documented life nearby. 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. Its clearest strength to build from is that a watercourse runs through the parcel.
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.
Nearest declared corridor: Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas, about 16 km · Área de Conservación Pacífico Central (ACOPAC)
This reads as a partial patch that extends the network's reach, scoring 40 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 53/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.
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.
The nearest declared corridor is the Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas, about 16 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 Carara, Cerros de Turrubares, Cordillera piedmont.
Nearest PNCB screening extent ~16 km. Extents are approximate — confirm against SINAC/PNCB.
This reads as a partial patch — enhancing it extends the network's reach.
A partly-forested parcel beside the corridor works as a stepping stone: thickening its cover and connecting it to the neighbours widens the habitat that species can actually move through.
52% 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 53/100, drawing on standing forest, water on site. 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 with a local lawyer and pull the cadastral record; check eligibility for FONAFIFO's PSA payment (Pago por Servicios Ambientales — Costa Rica pays landowners to keep or restore forest) for reforestation or regeneration on the parcel.
- 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
Site a small, low-footprint hospitality operation on the already-worked ground to fund the stewardship.
Once the land is securedA 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.
- 04
Set a connectivity baseline and re-read it — camera traps aimed at the movement the corridor was declared to carry.
OngoingFunders 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 central-Pacific corridor for the scarlet macaw, connecting Carara's lowland forest to the interior hills.
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, 2004–2024 · mm
Exposure · High
2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.0°C warmer than today's, with 44% 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
Río Montezuma · Río Cóbano · Río Negro · Río Bonito
Soil · 0–30 cm
Clay loam
Terrain & cover
The living surface
What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.
Ecology
Pelecanus occidentalis · Calocitta formosa · Quiscalus mexicanus · Fregata magnificens
Pressure
Forest history · since 2000
Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11
Record & context
What the state and its institutions say about this ground.
Costa Rica ecological corridor
Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas
The central-Pacific corridor for the scarlet macaw, connecting Carara's lowland forest to the interior hills.
Connects · Parque Nacional Carara · Cerros de Turrubares · Cordillera piedmont
PNCB / SINAC — Corredores Biológicos (screening reference) · approximate screening extent — confirm against the official SINAC / PNCB record
See the corridor network →Costa Rica land record
SNIT Costa Rica (IGN / IDECORI) · official national data — verify title & permits locally
Below the surface
The fungal networks that move water and nutrients between roots.
Underground fungal networks
SPUN Underground Atlas (Van Nuland et al. 2025) · 1 km model of underground fungal biodiversity · hotspots = global top decile of predicted richness
Future · the horizons the engine has read
Now
- Mean temperature
- 26.5 °C
- Rain, latest year (2024)
- 3,353 mm
- Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
- 6
- Longest dry spell
- 40 days
- Mean elevation
- 40 m
The rain row is one year alone — the Water panel's 2,856 mm is the long mean, and with the record up 38% in twenty years, recent years sit above it by design.
2050
- Temperature shift
- +1.0 °C
- Rainfall shift
- +44 %
- Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
- 31 (+25)
- Longest dry spell
- 29 days (-11)
- Exposure
- High — a hard projected shift — plan around it
- Resilience reading
- 12 / 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
Coastal buffer · blue–green
69 / 100 fitProtect the blue–green edge.
Low-lying at 40 m, this reads as a coastal or wetland edge — an inference from elevation and water signals, not a measured shoreline distance, so confirm how near the water actually is. If it holds, the play is the buffer: protect and restore it for blue carbon (the carbon coastal wetlands lock away), storm defence, and nursery habitat.
Low-lying coastal or wetland ground where mangrove, marsh, and dry forest meet the sea. Protect and restore the buffer — blue carbon, storm defence, nursery habitat.
Also consider · Watershed protection (40) · Regenerative agroforestry estate (38)
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 (53/100) is a different scale that asks only whether a small lodge could fund the stewardship here — the two need not match. Two theses share this ground: this lens reads its low wet edge — the buffer to restore; the deployment lens reads its standing patches — the stepping stones. One parcel holds both, so walk it to see which dominates, and let the first money follow that.
What to do
- 01
Map how water moves and stands across the parcel before siting anything on it.
First visitA large share reads as standing or saturated ground, which sets what can be built, farmed, or drained, and where.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the low ground at the end of the wet season and after heavy rain; a hydrologist can confirm the drainage pattern.
- 02
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.
- 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
- Which of the wet ground is a problem to drain, and which is an asset to keep — and who downstream depends on how you answer that?
- 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 · 12 layers→
Overpass (waterways, highways, places, protected areas)
Occurrence records (count + top species)
Administrative units, cadastral parcels, agrological land-capability, protected areas, Holdridge life zones (WFS)
Declared biological corridors (bundled screening reference of official corridors; approximate extents — confirm against SINAC/PNCB)
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)
Top-decile hotspots of predicted AM + ECM fungal richness (Van Nuland et al. 2025, Nature; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.14871588)
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 affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.
Generated Fri, 21 Aug 2026 15:59:23 GMT · 7.9s · synthesized by TERRA.
Generated Fri, 21 Aug 2026 15:59:23 GMT · synthesized by TERRA · Dear Wise Earth.