Public reading

Export full report →Open on the board →Read another →

Shaded-relief view of the land around Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

2,012 ha inside the gold line

2.5 km

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela Province

2,012 ha · 10.130, -84.537 · Costa Rica

79out of 100 · Land ScoreAnchor

The water is the estate here.

93rd percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 84 conservation priority

Water: 100
Soil: 64
Ecology: 60
Climate: 74
Pressure: 93

10 of 15 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: osm_overpass, sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc…

The reading in full

This 2,012-hectare parcel near Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela Province is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. It scores 79 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: 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.

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.

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 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. 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. Official Costa Rican record places this in Ángeles, San Ramón, Alajuela. 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: Read across the record, the land reads as stable: the canopy history shows no meaningful loss in a generation and the water signal is holding, which means the work is to build on a sound base rather than to reverse a decline. 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 ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela Province — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela 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

79out of 100 · Land ScoreAnchor

The water is the estate here.

Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela Province

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

93rd percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 84 conservation priority

Five readings

Water100

Soil64

Ecology60

Climate74

Pressure93

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

93rdpercentile

Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 93rd of all 100

Coverage

100%

weight read

10 of 15 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Silent: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar +2.

Where the capital goes

84/ 100 priority

Keystonehospitality fit 80

Best-fit model

Corridor anchor reserve

72 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

2,012ha

Elevation

1,104m

929–1,306 m

Slope

3.5°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

64%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

2,937mm/yr

+48% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+1.2°C

rain -1%

Soil carbon

33.9g/kg

pH 5.5

Nearest road

not read

Species records

18,430records

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 2,937 mm of rain falls here in a year. 64% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (3.5° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. By 2050 the models expect +1.2 °C and -0% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holding — 2.9% of the tree cover lost since 2000; rainfall up 48% 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

2,012 hectares at Piedades Sur of strongly rising land around 1,104 m. The ground reads 64% under canopy, 3% built. Water shapes it — 2,937 mm of rain a year. It stands inside the Corredor Biológico Montes del Aguacate connectivity network (screening extent — confirm against SINAC, the national conservation agency).

Its vocationprotect

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 64% tree cover inside a declared biological corridor and a conservation priority of 84, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.

1,104 m elevation64% forest3.5° slope2,937 mm rain/yrKeystone tier — secure now

Its trajectoryholding— the canopy record shows no meaningful loss in a generation.

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: recorded, from the historical archive · observed, measured from satellite or map data · estimated, from a model, not a measurement · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page.

The forest here has held for a generation.

recordedThis canopy has held: 48% cover in 2000, 2.9% 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

More water is arriving — and arriving harder.

observedThe twenty-year rain record moved +47.7% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
estimatedThe dry spells are lengthening at the same time (~11 → ~17 days) — more rain is arriving in stronger pulses with longer gaps, not as a gentler year.

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

For its kind of land, its calm (low pressure) stands out.

derivedAgainst 34 readings of like land (Subtropical · Neotropic), this parcel's calm (low pressure) ranks in the top 7%.
derivedAn unusual strength is the thing to protect first — it is what its peers do not have.

What to doWhatever plan is made, it should be one that cannot spend this calm (low pressure) down.

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

Height is this land's climate insurance.

observedAt 1,104 m, today's mean sits at 19.9°C.
estimatedThe +1.2°C projected by 2050 arrives on that cool baseline — roughly 0 hot days a year here while lowland sites cross heat thresholds this parcel never reaches.
derivedAs the lowlands warm, land that stays temperate does double work: livable for people, refuge for species moving uphill.

What to doTreat elevation as an appreciating part of the asset — and design for the species arriving from below, not only the ones here now.

Bears on the decades ahead · 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

64% tree cover on 2,937 mm of rain; 2.9% of the tree cover lost since 2000, last in 2023.

Keep the canopy whole; the loop is running the right way on its own.

Open ground and soil

bare or grazed ground → compaction → runoff → thinner soil

holding

36% open ground on a 3.5° average slope.

Keep the ground covered through the dry season; rested pasture and cover crops turn this loop around on gentle slopes.

Reading the place

This 2,012-hectare parcel near Piedades Sur, San Ramón, Alajuela Province is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair, scoring 79 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that the terrain is steep, which constrains construction and raises erosion risk. Its main strength is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover. The first move: design roads and structures to the contour, and get a geotechnical and erosion assessment before any earthworks.

Riskhigh confidence

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.

Mean slope 4°, with 377 m of elevation change across the parcel.

Opportunitylow confidence

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.

64% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping). Naturalness is not verified.

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, 0% rainfall. Exposure rated Moderate.

Waterhigh confidence

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.

2,937 mm of rain per year. The archive's 20-year trend reads about +48% — a swing that size deserves verification against local records before it informs any plan.

Biodiversityhigh confidence

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.

18,430 biodiversity records nearby, including Cantorchilus modestus and Basileuterus rufifrons (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.

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

Accessmedium confidence

Official Costa Rican record places this in Ángeles, San Ramón, Alajuela.

National cadastral and administrative data ground the parcel in the legal record — the basis for title, permitting, and tax diligence.

Jurisdiction: Ángeles, San Ramón, Alajuela. 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

Read across the record, the land reads as stable: the canopy history shows no meaningful loss in a generation and the water signal is holding, which means the work is to build on a sound base rather than to reverse a decline.

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 ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

84Conservation priority

KeystoneCore habitat

High-value corridor land to secure before it is lost.

high-value connectivity land to secure now

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 Montes del Aguacate (screening) · Área de Conservación Pacífico Central (ACOPAC)

Inside the Corredor Biológico Montes del Aguacate, this reads as intact habitat to secure, scoring 84 out of 100 for conservation priority. It is a keystone: high-value connectivity land to secure now, before it turns over. A small, low-footprint operation (fit 80/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

80/100

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 Montes del Aguacate (screening).

This is a declared biological corridor in Área de Conservación Pacífico Central (ACOPAC) — land inside it carries a national connectivity mandate and is where conservation capital compounds, joining protected areas rather than standing alone. The corridor links Cordillera Volcánica Central, Cerros de Turrubares, Pacífico Central.

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 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.

64% 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 80/100, drawing on standing forest, protected land alongside, relief for views. 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 committing
Intact 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 visit
The 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 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 piedmont corridor tying the central volcanic range to the Pacific slope across the Aguacate 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.

How it compares

93rdpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt

93rd percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

Stronger land than 93% of the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic. Freedom from development pressure is its strongest signal here (93rd percentile), soil its weakest (48th). Land reads weaker toward the north-east.

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

73rd

Soil

48th

Ecology

66th

Climate

85th

Low pressure

93rd

Landscape · 9 readings within 40 km

·Land reads weaker 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

19.9°C

Mean temp

+1.2°C

2050 Δ temp

-1%

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 1% 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

2,937mm/yr

Rainfall

+47.7%

20-yr trend

—km

To watercourse

Soil · 0–30 cm

33.9g/kg

Org. carbon

5.5

38%

Sand

35%

Clay

Clay loam

Terrain & cover

1,104m

Elevation

3.5°

Mean slope

64%

Forest

Built

Tree cover 64%Grassland 33%Built-up 3%

The living surface

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

Ecology

18,430

Recorded wildlife observations

GBIF · the global species-record archive

Cantorchilus modestus · Basileuterus rufifrons · Turdus grayi · Psilorhinus morio

Pressure

Source unavailable for this parcel.

Forest history · since 2000

48%

Tree cover 2000

2.9%

Cover lost

2023

Latest loss

Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11

Record & context

What the state and its institutions say about this ground.

Costa Rica ecological corridor

Within

Corridor

screening extent

Área de Conservación Pacífico Central (ACOPAC)

Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Montes del Aguacate

A piedmont corridor tying the central volcanic range to the Pacific slope across the Aguacate hills.

Connects · Cordillera Volcánica Central · Cerros de Turrubares · Pacífico Central

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

See the corridor network →

Costa Rica land record

Ángeles, San Ramón, Alajuela

Jurisdiction

SNIT Costa Rica (IGN / IDECORI) · official national data — verify title & permits locally

Best-fit regenerative model

Corridor anchor reserve

72 / 100 fit

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open.

With 64% tree cover inside a declared biological corridor and a conservation priority of 84, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.

High-value habitat inside the connectivity network. The move is to secure it — purchase or easement — so the corridor it anchors stays unbroken.

1,104 m elevation64% forest3.5° slope2,937 mm rain/yrinside a corridor

Also consider · Ecolodge / retreat (65) · Regenerative agroforestry estate (39)

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 (80/100) 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
Design roads and structures to the contour, and get a geotechnical and erosion assessment before any earthworks.
Before committing
Steep ground raises building and access costs and erosion risk; the terrain sets the layout, not the other way round.
Confirm on the ground · Have a geotechnical engineer assess slope stability and cut-and-fill on the ground before a road line is committed.
02
Ground-truth what the canopy actually is before assuming forest value.
First visit
Satellite land-cover cannot separate natural forest from a monoculture plantation, and the difference decides the conservation and carbon value.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the stand: one species in rows is plantation; mixed ages and species with natural regeneration is forest. A botanist can confirm.
03
Visit the land to confirm the reading and protect what already works.
First visit
The core systems read as sound; the priority is to keep them that way and avoid degrading them.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the parcel with the reading in hand and note where the ground agrees and disagrees with it.

Questions to sit with

Standing under the canopy, is it one species or many — and which parts would you protect rather than replant?
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

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.

Schedule a 30-min call →See services or email us

Sources & method · 10 layers→

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

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: the river and road trace, Sentinel-2, the radar, the governance record, the thermal read — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:38:04 GMT · 15.9s · synthesized by TERRA.