Public reading
49 ha · 8.394, -83.289 · Costa Rica
Nature has kept its side of it.
4th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 56 conservation priority
23 of 30 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc, osm_reach…
The reading in full
This 49-hectare parcel near Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301 is workable land whose plan must come before the capital. It scores 41 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. The flat ground is real but scattered — it does not add up to one site. A parcel can be a quarter buildable and still have nowhere to put a building. Small benches spread across a slope suit dispersed, light structures far better than anything that wants a single footprint. 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. 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 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 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 ground and its cover
The verdict, the five pillar readings, how much of the land was read, and the headline figures.
The verdict
Puerto Jiménez, Puntarenas Province, 61301
4th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 56 conservation priority
Five readings
Weakest: Water
All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land.
Standing
Tropical · Neotropic · against 46 readings · 5th of all 100
Coverage
23 of 30 layers answered
Every pillar read from live data.
Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the infrastructure reach +4.
Where the capital goes
Frontierhospitality fit 67
Best-fit model
Corridor anchor reserve
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 4,506 mm of rain falls here in a year. 100% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 6.7° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 7 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Piro, Río Sombrerillo). 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.
Holding — the 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 56, 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
49 hectares at Puerto Jiménez of rolling land around 181 m. The ground reads 100% under canopy. Water shapes it — 4,506 mm of rain a year, 7 traced watercourses. Sparsely peopled — 307 neighbours within 5 km, governed from Puerto Jiménez.
Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 100% tree cover beside the network and a conservation priority of 56, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.
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.
Overpass (waterways, highways, places, protected areas)
Occurrence records (count + top species)
Nearest fire station, emergency post, flood/coastal defence, water works, monitoring station, coastline — mapped presence, not effectiveness
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)
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)
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
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)
Per-cell slope and aspect (Horn), buildable share, largest contiguous bench
Upstream basin + downstream flowpath (screening hydrography)
Gridded population 2020 (parcel + 5 km ring sums)
M ≥ 5 events within 100 km, past 50 years
Last burn year and burn count per 500 m pixel over the record since 2001
Administrative hierarchy + structured facts of the governing unit
Official decree-delimited territory boundaries (legal-constraint overlay; never scored or ranked)
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 infrastructure reach, the governance record, the thermal read, the biomass map, the hazard screen — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.
Generated Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:59:39 GMT · 19.1s · synthesized by TERRA.