Public reading
100 ha · 10.404, -84.218 · Costa Rica
The capacity is present; the work is regeneration.
56th percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 89 conservation priority
8 of 8 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm
The reading in full
This 100-hectare parcel near Santa Rita, Río Cuarto, Alajuela Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 63 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.
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: Models project a warmer and wetter climate here by 2050. The projected change is modest, so current conditions are a reasonable guide for planning. Rainfall is very high. Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter. Rainfall has also been rising, which can bring more intense wet seasons; plan drainage accordingly. The land is flat. Flat ground is easy to build on, farm, and mechanize, though low flat land can drain poorly and should be checked for waterlogging. 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. Road and town access are close. Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices.
What the land is telling us: The change record here is thin — the canopy history did not fully resolve — so the trajectory is honestly unknown. The standing signals look sound, but calling the land stable would be an assertion, not a reading; treat its direction as a first field question. 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. 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
Santa Rita, Río Cuarto, Alajuela Province
56th percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 89 conservation priority
Five readings
Weakest: Pressure
All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land.
Standing
Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 61st of all 100
Coverage
8 of 8 layers answered
Every pillar read from live data.
Where the capital goes
Keystonehospitality fit 65
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 3,646 mm of rain falls here in a year. 64% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (2° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. 85 mapped watercourses cross the land (Quebrada Torito, Río Cuarto). A road runs against the boundary, and settlement sits within a kilometre, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +0.8 °C and +1% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.
Holding — rainfall up 21% 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 Santa Rita of gentle land around 241 m. The ground reads 64% under canopy, 17% built. Water shapes it — 3,646 mm of rain a year, 85 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is Santa Rita, 0 km away. It stands inside the Corredor Biológico San Juan–La Selva connectivity network (screening extent — confirm against SINAC, the national conservation agency).
Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 64% tree cover inside a declared biological corridor and a conservation priority of 89, 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.
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
Overpass (waterways, highways, places, protected areas)
Occurrence records (count + top species)
Global Surface Water v1.4 — occurrence & seasonality
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.
Generated Fri, 26 Jun 2026 04:31:18 GMT · 12.0s · synthesized by TERRA.