Land Intelligence Report
Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province
16,338 ha · 9.6466, -85.1340 · The water is willing. Follow it.
The reading in full
This 16,338-hectare parcel near Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 62 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.
The risks that most shape a decision here: Dry spells are projected to run about 94 days by 2050. A long rain-free stretch — not the yearly total — is what empties soil moisture and storage; size water storage and choose drought-tolerant planting to the dry spell, not the annual average. 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. A meaningful share of this land's tree cover has been cleared since 2000. Long-term loss points to historical or ongoing clearing pressure and a lower conservation baseline; confirm the legal status and whether clearing is still active. Hazard screening rates this district high for urban flood, coastal flood, earthquake, landslide, tsunami, 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. The district screens material for urban flood, coastal flood, tsunami, wildfire, with nothing mapped against them within reach. A hazard class is one fact; the same class with no fire station, flood works, water works, or emergency post mapped within reach is another — an adaptation gap. The works may exist unmapped, so confirm on the ground; but plan as if the response would have to be the parcel's own. 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 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. 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 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. The parcel is relatively remote. Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs. 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 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: The longer record suggests a land that has been drawn down rather than held: about 8% of its tree cover has been cleared since 2000, most recently in 2023. It reads as opened rather than recovered, but the history is the reason the foundational work comes first. 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.
Physical risk and adaptation
| Hazard | Category | Screening class | Adaptation mapped | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| River flood | acute · climate-related | low | nothing mapped within reachno flood works mapped within 10 km · parcel possible: seasonal water 0% of the parcel · mean slope 0.9° · a mapped watercourse crosses the boundary | quiet |
| Urban flood | acute · climate-related | high | nothing mapped within reachno flood works mapped within 10 km · parcel possible: seasonal water 0% of the parcel · mean slope 0.9° · a mapped watercourse crosses the boundary | exposed |
| Coastal flood | acute · climate-related | high | nothing mapped within reachno coastal or flood works mapped within 10 km · coast 3 km · 0% below 10 m | exposed |
| Earthquake | geophysical · not climate-related | high | mapped within reachhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km | buffered |
| Landslide | acute · climate-related | high | mapped within reachhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km | buffered |
| Tsunami | geophysical · not climate-related | high | nothing mapped within reachno coastal or flood works mapped within 10 km · coast 3 km · 0% below 10 m | exposed |
| Volcano | geophysical · not climate-related | medium | mapped within reachhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km | buffered |
| Cyclone | acute · climate-related | low | mapped within reachhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km | quiet |
| Water scarcity | chronic · climate-related | very low | nothing mapped within reachno water works or reservoir mapped within 15 km | quiet |
| Extreme heat | chronic · climate-related | medium | mapped, but farhospital 3.2 km | watch |
| Wildfire | acute · climate-related | high | nothing mapped within reachno fire station mapped within 25 km · no burn in the 2001–2025 record | exposed |
- Ground at or below 10 m
- 0 ha
- Under high classes
- 16,338 ha · 6 classes
- Fire response
- not read
- Emergency response
- ~5 min
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.
Low-lying coast: 0% of the sampled ground lies at or below 10 m, with the mapped coast 3 km away. Exposure, not a sea-level projection.
Screening classes at district scale (ThinkHazard/GFDRR, hazard sets ~2015–2020, Puntarenas, Puntarenas, Costa Rica). Adaptation is mapped presence in OpenStreetMap within graded radii — the condition and design standard of the works are not read. Fire history is the NASA MODIS burned-area record 2001–2025 at 500 m — the ground's own regime, never a forecast.A reading of “buffered” is not a reading of “safe”.
The verdict
The water is willing. Follow it.
Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province
Frontier tier · 56 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
24 of 28 layers answered
Every pillar read from live data.
Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record +1.
Where the capital goes
Frontierhospitality fit 74
Best-fit model
Ecolodge / retreat
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 2,909 mm of rain falls here in a year. 82% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (0.9° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. 151 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Montezuma, Río Arío), and what leaves it travels 8 km downstream before the mapped path ends. The nearest road is 3.6 km off, and the nearest settlement is 6.2 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +0.9 °C and +34% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.
Holding — the canopy record shows no meaningful loss in a generation.
Fund conservation through low-footprint hospitality. Accessible and scenic beside standing habitat, with a hospitality fit of 74/100, this land can carry a small, low-footprint operation whose revenue funds the conservation. To help: stop the clearing at the streams first: every metre of canopy kept along water holds the loop together.
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
16,338 hectares at Cóbano of rolling land around 136 m. The ground reads 82% under canopy. Water shapes it — 2,909 mm of rain a year, 151 traced watercourses. 13,108 people within 5 km, governed from Puntarenas.
Fund conservation through low-footprint hospitality. Accessible and scenic beside standing habitat, with a hospitality fit of 74/100, this land can carry a small, low-footprint operation whose revenue funds the conservation.
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.
The people around it
“Not read” means nothing of that kind is mapped within the search radius. That is a gap in the map, not a zero.
Who governs this land
Costa Rica · Puntarenas · Puntarenas · Cóbano
What the land is exposed to — and what stands against it
4 adaptation gaps: urban flood, coastal flood, tsunami, wildfire screen material here with nothing mapped against them within reach.
- Urban floodexposedscreens highno flood works mapped within 10 km · parcel possible: seasonal water 0% of the parcel · mean slope 0.9° · a mapped watercourse crosses the boundary
- Coastal floodexposedscreens highno coastal or flood works mapped within 10 km · coast 3 km · 0% below 10 m
- Earthquakebufferedscreens highhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km
- Landslidebufferedscreens highhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km
- Tsunamiexposedscreens highno coastal or flood works mapped within 10 km · coast 3 km · 0% below 10 m
- Volcanobufferedscreens mediumhospital 3.2 km · emergency post 3.2 km
- Extreme heatwatchscreens mediumhospital 3.2 km
- Wildfireexposedscreens highno fire station mapped within 25 km · no burn in the 2001–2025 record
Low-lying coast: 0% of the sampled ground lies at or below 10 m, the mapped coast 3 km away. That is exposure, read from elevation — TERRA has read no sea-level scenario and does not invent one.
- Ground at or below 10 m
- 0 ha
- Under high classes
- 16,338 ha · 6 classes
- Fire response
- not read
- Emergency response
- ~5 min
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.
52 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or more within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7.6 — most recent M5.2, 2026 (USGS).
What the record remembers
The named places and features the public encyclopedia holds around this land: the recorded memory, not the whole memory.
- Santa Teresa, Costa Rica3.6 km
- Cóbano3.9 km
- Cueva Murciélago Wildlife Refuge6.5 km
- Aeropuerto Internacional de Cóbano6.8 km
- Montezuma, Costa Rica7.4 km
- Malpais, Costa Rica7.4 km
- Nicolas Wessberg Absolute Natural Reserve8.5 km
No heritage features recorded within 10 km of this parcel.
Locations are deliberately withheld; presence is shown at landscape scale only. Costa Rica: archaeological finds are state property (Ley 6703); the Museo Nacional keeps the site registry and development projects carry a SETENA assessment duty. Absence of information here is not evidence of absence.
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 · observed, measured from satellite or map data · official, from a public or state record.
- estimated
This parcel collects the water of Its watershed— screening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)
- estimated
This parcel sends its water down Downstream flowpath8 km mapped below the parcel— screening hydrography (MERIT-Hydro ~90 m)
- observed
This parcel is crossed by Río Montezuma
- observed
This parcel is within reach of Río Arío
- official
This parcel sits beside Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas23.7 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
- official
This parcel answers to PuntarenasHDI 0.734 (2022)
- official
Puntarenas sits in Puntarenas
- official
Puntarenas sits in Costa Rica
- observed
This parcel lives beside Cóbano6.15 km away · 13,108 people within 5 km
- estimated
This parcel is screened as exposed to Urban floodhigh (screening)— screening class at admin-division scale
- estimated
This parcel is screened as exposed to Coastal floodhigh (screening)— screening class at admin-division scale
- estimated
This parcel is screened as exposed to Earthquakehigh (screening)— screening class at admin-division scale
- official
This parcel stands on ground that has felt Seismic history52 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
16,338 ha inside the boundary
a standing block of forest
82% tree cover
- 2
catchment
its catchment
a sink: a large country drains through it
8 km of mapped path below
- 3
corridor
Corredor Biológico Paso de las Lapas
core of the corridor
23.7 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 · estimated, from a model, not a measurement · official, from a public or state record · scientific, from a published study.
The forest here has held for a generation.
- recordedThis canopy has held: 65% cover in 2000, 7.8% 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.
- observedA watercourse crosses the parcel itself.
- observedAnd the rain record has risen 56.3% in twenty years.
- derived2 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 +56.3% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
- estimatedThe dry spells are lengthening at the same time (~35 → ~94 days) — more rain is arriving in stronger pulses with longer gaps, not as a gentler year.
- estimatedThat energy leaves along a mapped 8 km downstream path — what this parcel's cover holds back, the people below never have to absorb.
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.
- observed151 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
This land comes with neighbours.
- scientific13,108 people live within 5 km — this land sits inside a living community.
- derivedThe nearest hospital or clinic is 3.2 km away; grid evidence 6.8 km — services are within a working day's reach.
- derivedThe neighbours are the labor pool, the early-warning system, and the social license — the project's first relationships are already living here.
What to doMeet the neighbours before the notary — what they know and want will shape everything here.
Bears on daily life and operating cost · 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 degradation
82% tree cover on 2,909 mm of rain; 7.8% of the tree cover lost since 2000, last in 2023.
Stop the clearing at the streams first: every metre of canopy kept along water holds the loop together.
The edge and the road
access → clearing at the edge → more edge → more access
holding
road 3.6 km, settlement 6.2 km; 7.8% tree cover lost since 2000.
Distance is doing the work here; keep it, and do not build the road that would end it.
Reading the place
This 16,338-hectare parcel near Cóbano, Puntarenas, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside, scoring 62 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that dry spells are projected to run about 94 days by 2050. Its main strength is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover. The first move: build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.
Dry spells are projected to run about 94 days by 2050.
A long rain-free stretch — not the yearly total — is what empties soil moisture and storage; size water storage and choose drought-tolerant planting to the dry spell, not the annual average.
Longest yearly run of days under 1 mm of rain projected near 94 days longer than today's 35-day spell (Open-Meteo daily climate).
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: +0.9 °C mean temperature, +34% rainfall. Exposure rated High.
A meaningful share of this land's tree cover has been cleared since 2000.
Long-term loss points to historical or ongoing clearing pressure and a lower conservation baseline; confirm the legal status and whether clearing is still active.
About 7.8% of the parcel lost tree cover since 2000, most recently in 2023. It held 65% tree cover in 2000. Source: Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11.
Hazard screening rates this district high for urban flood, coastal flood, earthquake, landslide, tsunami, 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.
6 of 11 screened hazards rate high in Puntarenas, Puntarenas, Costa Rica (ThinkHazard/GFDRR, screening-grade).
The district screens material for urban flood, coastal flood, tsunami, wildfire, with nothing mapped against them within reach.
A hazard class is one fact; the same class with no fire station, flood works, water works, or emergency post mapped within reach is another — an adaptation gap. The works may exist unmapped, so confirm on the ground; but plan as if the response would have to be the parcel's own.
Urban flood: no flood works mapped within 10 km · parcel possible: seasonal water 0% of the parcel · mean slope 0.9° · a mapped watercourse crosses the boundary; Coastal flood: no coastal or flood works mapped within 10 km · coast 3 km · 0% below 10 m; Tsunami: no coastal or flood works mapped within 10 km · coast 3 km · 0% below 10 m; Wildfire: no fire station mapped within 25 km · no burn in the 2001–2025 record (ThinkHazard screen; OpenStreetMap presence, not effectiveness).
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.
52 earthquakes ≥ M5 within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7.6, most recent M5.2 in 2026 (USGS catalog).
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.
82% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping). Naturalness is not verified.
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.
81% 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.
2,909 mm of rain per year. A watercourse crosses the parcel. The archive's 20-year trend reads about +56% — 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 8 km downstream of it (MERIT-Hydro screening hydrography).
The land is gently rolling.
Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads.
Mean elevation 136 m, mean slope 1°, 188 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.
32,171 biodiversity records nearby, including Melanerpes hoffmannii and Campylorhynchus capistratus (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.
23.7 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay loam texture, pH 5.8 (ISRIC SoilGrids).
The parcel is relatively remote.
Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs.
About 3.62 km to the nearest road, 6.15 km to Cóbano.
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.
13,108 people live within 5 km (WorldPop 2020); nearest hospital or clinic 3.2 km (Ebais Santa Teresa); school 0.7 km; grid evidence 6.8 km; airstrip 7 km.
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.
Costa Rica · Puntarenas · Puntarenas · Cóbano — canton HDI 0.734 (2022, PNUD/UCR), 7,494 people in the governing unit.
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
The longer record suggests a land that has been drawn down rather than held: about 8% of its tree cover has been cleared since 2000, most recently in 2023. It reads as opened rather than recovered, but the history is the reason the foundational work comes first.
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.
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 24 km · Área de Conservación Pacífico Central (ACOPAC)
This reads as intact habitat to secure, scoring 56 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 74/100) 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 24 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 ~24 km. Extents are approximate — confirm against SINAC/PNCB.
This reads as intact habitat — the priority is to secure it, not rebuild it.
Standing natural forest is far cheaper to protect than to restore, and holding it inside a corridor keeps the connection open. Securing tenure and legal protection is where capital does the most here.
82% tree cover, 8% cleared since 2000.
A small hospitality operation could carry the conservation here.
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 74/100, drawing on standing forest, water on site. Site any building on the already-worked ground, not the habitat.
Capital moves
- 01
Secure this land first — through purchase, or a conservation easement that survives a change of owner.
Before committingIntact corridor habitat holds its value only while it stays intact; locking in protection before the land turns over is the move capital cannot undo.
Confirm on the ground · Confirm title and boundaries with a local lawyer, then scope a servidumbre ecológica (ecological easement) and FONAFIFO's PSA forest-protection payment (Pago por Servicios Ambientales — Costa Rica's national payment for keeping forest standing) against the parcel.
- 02
Protect the standing forest and remove the active threats to it.
First visitThe habitat is already here; the work is to keep it — stopping clearing, fire, and hunting pressure holds far more value than any planting would add.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the boundary for signs of encroachment, fire, and hunting; agree the protection terms with neighbours who share the edge.
- 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 0.9°C warmer than today's, with 34% 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 Arío · Río Astro Blanco · Río Frío
Soil · 0–30 cm
Clay loam
Terrain & cover
The living surface
What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.
Ecology
Melanerpes hoffmannii · Campylorhynchus capistratus · Coragyps atratus · Pitangus sulphuratus
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
Regional illness · dengue
Puntarenas district does not appear in the national district-level dengue table for 2013–2018 — a gap in the record, not evidence of absence. Nationally, Costa Rica recorded 31,259 dengue notifications in 2024.
OpenDengue (PAHO / Ministerio de Salud record) · notification counts, not population-adjusted — historical burden geography, not the current season. Ground-truth with the Ministerio de Salud's weekly bulletin.
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
- 25.5 °C
- Rain, latest year (2024)
- 4,064 mm
- Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
- 5
- Longest dry spell
- 35 days
- Mean elevation
- 136 m
The rain row is one year alone — the Water panel's 2,909 mm is the long mean, and with the record up 56% in twenty years, recent years sit above it by design.
2050
- Temperature shift
- +0.9 °C+0.9 to +1.5 °C across 4 models
- Rainfall shift
- +34 %-28 to +34 % across 4 models
- Hot days (≥32 °C) / yr
- 13 (+8)
- Longest dry spell
- 94 days (+59)
- Exposure
- High — a hard projected shift — plan around it
- Resilience reading
- 20 / 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 range beside it spans 4 CMIP6 HighResMIP models. All of them run one emissions scenario (SSP5-8.5) — several models, not several futures. 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
Ecolodge / retreat
51 / 100 fitFund conservation through low-footprint hospitality.
Accessible and scenic beside standing habitat, with a hospitality fit of 74/100, this land can carry a small, low-footprint operation whose revenue funds the conservation.
Accessible, scenic land beside standing habitat. A small, low-footprint operation on the worked ground earns the revenue that pays for the restoration.
Also consider · Corridor anchor reserve (49) · Watershed protection (47)
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 (74/100) 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
Build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.
First dry seasonWater, not the yearly total, is the limiting factor here; storage and drought-tolerant choices decide what the land can carry.
Confirm on the ground · Measure the springs, wells, and watercourses at the end of the dry season, when supply is at its lowest — that is the number to plan against.
- 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
Cut and maintain firebreaks along the boundary and site water storage for suppression before the first dry season.
Before the first dry seasonThe district screens material for wildfire and no fire station is mapped within reach — the first response would have to be the parcel's own.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the boundary with a local fire brigade or forestry officer to set the break lines; confirm the storage point can be reached by a tanker.
- 04
Commission a flood-line survey before siting anything permanent on the low ground.
Before committingThe district screens material for river or urban flood and no flood works are mapped within 10 km; the parcel's own low ground is where that lands.
Confirm on the ground · Have a hydrologist or the municipal engineer mark the recorded flood line on the parcel; ask long-time neighbours where the water reached in the worst year they remember.
- 05
Keep permanent structures above the 10 m line and commission storm-surge mapping for the ground below it.
Before committingPart of the parcel reads as low-lying coast with no coastal works mapped within reach; surge and long-run sea level land on exactly that ground.
Confirm on the ground · Survey the 5 m and 10 m contours on the ground and check the parcel against the national coastal-hazard mapping before drawing a site plan.
Questions to sit with
- Standing under the canopy, is it one species or many — and which parts would you protect rather than replant?
- 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 · 24 layers→
Overpass (waterways, highways, places, protected areas)
Occurrence records (count + top species)
Nearest hospital, school, fuel, airport, port, power grid
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)
Upstream basin + downstream flowpath (screening hydrography)
Gridded population 2020 (parcel + 5 km ring sums)
Multi-hazard classes at admin-division scale (screening-grade; hazard sets ~2015–2020)
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 governance record, the thermal read — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.
Generated Thu, 10 Sep 2026 07:36:59 GMT · 18.6s · synthesized by TERRA.
Generated Thu, 10 Sep 2026 07:36:59 GMT · synthesized by TERRA · Dear Wise Earth.