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Shaded-relief view of the land around San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

44 ha inside the gold line

500 m

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province

44 ha · 9.347, -83.703 · Costa Rica

45out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

A plan would change this land's answer.

10th percentile for like land · Corridor tier · 84 conservation priority

Water: 42
Soil: 57
Ecology: 17
Climate: 67
Pressure: 43

8 of 8 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm

The reading in full

This 44-hectare parcel near San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province is workable land whose plan must come before the capital. It scores 45 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.

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.

The wider readings: Models project a warmer and drier climate here by 2050. Expect a warmer and drier future here; favour species and infrastructure that tolerate the projected range. 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. Biodiversity records are moderate. There is a reasonable but incomplete picture of local wildlife; a ground survey would sharpen any conservation or regulatory assessment. 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 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. 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 a watercourse runs through the parcel.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province — 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

45out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

A plan would change this land's answer.

San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

10th percentile for like land · Corridor tier · 84 conservation priority

Five readings

Water42

Soil57

Ecology17

Climate67

Pressure43

Weakest: Ecology

All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land.

Standing

10thpercentile

Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 9th of all 100

Coverage

100%

weight read

8 of 8 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Where the capital goes

84/ 100 priority

Corridorhospitality fit 69

Best-fit model

Watershed protection

50 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

44ha

Elevation

721m

707–735 m

Slope

3.7°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

20%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

6,847mm/yr

-31% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+1.2°C

rain -4%

Soil carbon

29.8g/kg

pH 5.5

Nearest road

0.7km

Species records

52records

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 6,847 mm of rain falls here in a year. 20% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (3.7° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. 182 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río General, Río Pedregoso). The nearest road is 0.7 km off, and the nearest settlement is 2.6 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1.2 °C and -4% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holding — rainfall down 31% over twenty years.

To help: plant along the watercourses and the ridge: canopy there returns the most water to the rest.

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

44 hectares at San Isidro de El General of gentle land around 721 m. The ground reads 20% under canopy, 7% built. Water shapes it — 6,847 mm of rain a year, 182 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is San Isidro de El General, 2.63 km away. It stands inside the Corredor Biológico Alexander Skutch connectivity network (screening extent — confirm against SINAC, the national conservation agency).

Its vocationreconnect

Hold the water tower for everyone downstream. Steep (3.7°), wet (6,847 mm/yr), and river-laced, this parcel's highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place for everyone downstream.

721 m elevation20% forest3.7° slope6,847 mm rain/yrCorridor tier — restoration compounds here

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 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: observed, measured from satellite or map data · estimated, from a model, not a measurement · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · official, from a public or state record.

The water here is thinning.

observedThe twenty-year rain record moved -31.4% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
estimatedwater security, storage, and drought-tolerant planting become the design constraints here.

What to doPrice water storage into any plan and verify the dry-season sources on the ground.

Bears on any plan that needs water · medium confidence

The network needs this land more than its own body suggests.

derivedThe Land Score reads 45, but conservation priority reads 84 — a 39-point gap.
officialThe gap is the point: this parcel is a break in the corridor, and closing a break buys more connectivity than protecting an equal hectare of intact core.

What to doValue this land by what it connects, not only what it contains — the leverage is in its position.

Bears on the corridor network · medium confidence

For its kind of land, its ecology is unusually weak.

derivedAgainst 34 readings of like land (Subtropical · Neotropic), this parcel's ecology ranks in the bottom 1%.
derivedAn unusual weakness is rarely bad luck — something specific happened or is happening here that its peers escaped.

What to doMake ecology the first diligence question on the ground: find the cause before pricing the land.

Bears on what this land is, relative to its kind · medium confidence

The road that serves this land also exposes it.

observedA road passes 0.71 km from the parcel — access is cheap.
officialThe parcel does connectivity work inside Corredor Biológico Alexander Skutch — and roads are where corridor edges fray first.
derivedWhatever makes this land easy for you makes it easy for extraction: the road is both your driveway and the pressure vector.

What to doControl the access early — gates, a present caretaker, and (in Costa Rica) enrolment in the PSA forest-protection payment turn the road back into an asset.

Bears on the boundary line · 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

20% tree cover on 6,847 mm of rain.

Plant along the watercourses and the ridge: canopy there returns the most water to the rest.

Open ground and soil

bare or grazed ground → compaction → runoff → thinner soil

holding

80% open ground on a 3.7° 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 0.7 km, settlement 2.6 km.

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 44-hectare parcel near San Isidro de El General, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province is workable land whose plan must come before the capital, scoring 45 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that the rainfall archive shows an unusually steep drying signal — verify before relying on it. Its main strength is that a watercourse runs through the parcel. The first move: build a water budget sized to the projected dry spell, not the annual average.

Risklow confidence

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 archive's linear trend reads about 31% lower over 20 years (2004–2024) — outside the range the engine treats as dependable.

Opportunityhigh confidence

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 General).

Climatemedium confidence

Models project a warmer and drier climate here by 2050.

Expect a warmer and drier future here; favour species and infrastructure that tolerate the projected range.

Projected change by 2050: +1.2 °C mean temperature, -4% rainfall. Exposure rated Moderate.

Waterhigh confidence

Rainfall is very high.

Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter.

6,847 mm of rain per year. A watercourse crosses the parcel.

Terrainhigh confidence

The land is gently rolling.

Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads.

Mean elevation 721 m, mean slope 4°, 28 m of relief.

Biodiversitymedium confidence

Biodiversity records are moderate.

There is a reasonable but incomplete picture of local wildlife; a ground survey would sharpen any conservation or regulatory assessment.

52 biodiversity records nearby, including Smilisca phaeota and Chloroceryle amazona (GBIF, the global species-record archive).

Soilmedium confidence

Soil organic carbon is moderate.

The soil is workable but will benefit from cover cropping and organic inputs to build fertility before intensive use.

29.8 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay loam texture, pH 5.5 (ISRIC SoilGrids).

Accesshigh confidence

Road and town access are close.

Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices.

About 0.71 km to the nearest road, 2.63 km to San Isidro de El General.

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 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. 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 a watercourse runs through the parcel.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

84Conservation priority

CorridorRestoration gap

Inside the corridor network, with restoration upside.

inside the network, with restoration upside

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.

Within the Corredor Biológico Alexander Skutch (screening) · Área de Conservación La Amistad-Pacífico (ACLAP)

Inside the Corredor Biológico Alexander Skutch, this reads as a break in the corridor to close, scoring 84 out of 100 for conservation priority. It sits in the corridor network, where capital spent on restoration compounds into connectivity. A small, low-footprint operation (fit 69/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

69/100

Hospitality fit

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.

Corridormedium confidence

The parcel falls within the Corredor Biológico Alexander Skutch (screening).

This is a declared biological corridor in Área de Conservación La Amistad-Pacífico (ACLAP) — land inside it carries a national connectivity mandate and is where conservation capital compounds, joining protected areas rather than standing alone. The corridor links Reserva Los Cusingos, Cordillera de Talamanca, Río General.

Centroid inside the PNCB screening extent for this corridor. Extent is approximate — confirm the parcel against the official SINAC/PNCB record.

Conservationmedium confidence

This reads as a gap in the corridor — restoring cover here closes a break in connectivity.

A cleared or thin stretch inside the network is the highest-leverage place to restore: replanting or assisted regeneration here reconnects habitat that is otherwise cut, which a stand of forest outside the corridor cannot do.

20% tree cover.

Hospitalitymedium confidence

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 69/100, drawing on protected land alongside, 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 committing
Restoration 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
Close the gap: replant the cleared ground and let the neighbouring forest seed back in.
First year
This parcel is where the corridor is broken, so restoring cover here reconnects habitat — the single highest-leverage ecological move on the land.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the parcel with a restoration ecologist to map what to plant and where natural regeneration will do the work on its own; confirm the seed sources in the adjacent forest.
03
Site a small, low-footprint hospitality operation on the already-worked ground to fund the stewardship.
Once the land is secured
A 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.
Ongoing
Funders 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 — a General-valley corridor around the naturalist's Los Cusingos reserve, reconnecting Talamanca's foothills to the river.

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.

How it compares

10thpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt

9th percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

Reads below most of the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic — stronger than 10%. Climate resilience is its strongest signal here (57th percentile), ecology its weakest (1st). Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-east.

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

15th

Soil

29th

Ecology

1st

Climate

57th

Low pressure

35th

Landscape · 12 readings within 44 km

·Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-east
·Land reads stronger toward the north-east

Percentiles compare this reading against the growing corpus of public TERRA readings in like land — not all land on Earth. They sharpen as the wall grows.

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

21.2°C

Mean temp

+1.2°C

2050 Δ temp

-4%

2050 Δ rain

Exposure · Moderate

2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.2°C warmer than today's, with 4% less 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

6,847mm/yr

Rainfall

-31.4%

20-yr trend

On site

To watercourse

Río General · Río Pedregoso · Quebrada Junco · Río Pacuar

Soil · 0–30 cm

29.8g/kg

Org. carbon

5.5

31%

Sand

36%

Clay

Clay loam

Terrain & cover

721m

Elevation

3.7°

Mean slope

20%

Forest

Built

Grassland 73%Tree cover 20%Built-up 7%

The living surface

What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.

Ecology

Recorded wildlife observations

GBIF · the global species-record archive

Smilisca phaeota · Chloroceryle amazona · Phaeochroa cuvierii · Heliomaster longirostris

Pressure

0.7km

To road

2.6km

To settlement

San Isidro de El General

Record & context

What the state and its institutions say about this ground.

Costa Rica ecological corridor

Within

Corridor

screening extent

Área de Conservación La Amistad-Pacífico (ACLAP)

Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Alexander Skutch

A General-valley corridor around the naturalist's Los Cusingos reserve, reconnecting Talamanca's foothills to the river.

Connects · Reserva Los Cusingos · Cordillera de Talamanca · Río General

PNCB / SINAC — Corredores Biológicos (screening reference) · approximate screening extent — confirm against the official SINAC / PNCB record

See the corridor network →

Best-fit regenerative model

Watershed protection

50 / 100 fit

Hold the water tower for everyone downstream.

Steep (3.7°), wet (6,847 mm/yr), and river-laced, this parcel's highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place for everyone downstream.

Steep, wet, river-laced ground whose highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place. Protect and reforest the slopes; the beneficiaries are downstream.

721 m elevation20% forest3.7° slope6,847 mm rain/yrinside a corridor

Also consider · Ecolodge / retreat (46) · Corridor anchor reserve (44)

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 (69/100) 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 season
Water, 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
Confirm tenure and boundaries against the legal record before relying on this reading.
Before committing
The satellite record cannot see title, easements, or where the legal boundary actually runs — the things that govern what you can do here.
Confirm on the ground · Pull the title and cadastral record, and walk the boundary against it on the ground.
03
Confirm soil and water on the ground, then design to what the land can carry.
First visit
The land is workable, but the plan has to be built to its limits rather than around a hoped-for use.
Confirm on the ground · Ground-truth the key constraints before committing to a use, then size the plan to them.

Questions to sit with

At the end of the dry season, where does water still hold on this land — and what would keep it there a month longer?
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.

Reading this land to

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Sources & method · 8 layers→

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)

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)

Surface water — JRC Global Surface Water

Global Surface Water v1.4 — occurrence & seasonality

30 m · 1984–2021

Copernicus / open (attribution)

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 Tue, 23 Jun 2026 22:35:10 GMT · 5.5s · synthesized by TERRA.