Public reading

Shaded-relief view of the land around Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301, the parcel boundary drawn in gold1,355 ha inside the gold line
2.5 km
Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301

1,355 ha · 8.394, -83.297 · Costa Rica

58out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

Worth restoring — and worth the patience.

49th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 65 conservation priority

Water
71
Soil
62
Ecology
79
Climate
10
Pressure
69

12 of 16 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc, worldbank_wgi…

The reading in full

This 1,355-hectare parcel near Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301 is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 58 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. The terrain is steep, which constrains construction and raises erosion risk. Steep slopes increase building and road costs, limit machinery access, and make the land more prone to erosion and landslides. 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: 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 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.

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 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. A count this size also reflects heavy survey effort — this is a well-watched landscape, so read it as well-documented rather than proportionally richer than its quieter neighbours. 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 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 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 most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301
2.5 km
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301
2.5 km
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

58out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

Worth restoring — and worth the patience.

Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301

49th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 65 conservation priority

Five readings

Water71strong
Soil62fair
Ecology79strong
Climate10watch
Pressure69strong

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

49thpercentile

Tropical · Neotropic · against 46 readings · 43rd of all 100

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

65/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 77

Best-fit model

Ecolodge / retreat

61 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area
1,355ha
Elevation
189m
22–333 m
Slope
4.8°
Buildable bench
not read
Forest cover
99%
Canopy height
not read
Rainfall
4,506mm/yr
-40% over 20 yr
Warming to 2050
+1.3°C
rain +47%
Soil carbon
32.5g/kg
pH 5.4
Nearest road
0.4km
Species records
79,692records
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. 99% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (4.8° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. 10 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Piro, Río Tamales). 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.

Holdingalmost no tree cover lost since 2000; rainfall down 40% 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

1,355 hectares at Puerto Jiménez of strongly rising land around 189 m. The ground reads 99% under canopy. Water shapes it — 4,506 mm of rain a year, 10 traced watercourses.

Its vocationinhabit carefully

Fund conservation through low-footprint hospitality. Accessible and scenic beside standing habitat, with a hospitality fit of 77/100, this land can carry a small, low-footprint operation whose revenue funds the conservation.

189 m elevation99% forest4.8° 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.

Sources & method · 12 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)
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
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
Underground fungal networks — SPUN Underground Atlas

Top-decile hotspots of predicted AM + ECM fungal richness (Van Nuland et al. 2025, Nature; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.14871588)

1 km · 2025 (v1.0)
No explicit license on the archive — terms requested from SPUN; attribution given

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 Sun, 23 Aug 2026 05:47:38 GMT · 7.4s · synthesized by TERRA.