Public reading

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Shaded-relief view of the land around San Rafael, Escazú, San José, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

4 ha inside the gold line

250 m

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

San Rafael, Escazú, San José

4 ha · 9.927, -84.151 · Costa Rica

53out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

Real potential, once the plan is clear.

26th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 21 conservation priority

Water: 100
Soil: not read
Ecology: 22
Climate: 72
Pressure: 6

9 of 14 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc, soilgrids…

The reading in full

This 4-hectare parcel near San Rafael, Escazú, San José is workable land whose plan must come before the capital. It scores 53 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

Where the upside lies: A watercourse lies close to the parcel. Nearby surface water improves access to irrigation and supply and adds habitat value, though rights and distance still affect how usable it is.

The wider readings: 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. 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. No satellite soil data is available for this parcel. Soil quality cannot be assessed remotely here, so a ground survey is needed before any agricultural or restoration decision. Road and town access are close. Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices. Official Costa Rican record places this in Escazú, Escazú, San José. 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 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 workable land whose plan must come before the capital. Its clearest strength to build from is that a watercourse lies close to the parcel.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — San Rafael, Escazú, San José — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — San Rafael, Escazú, San José — 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

53out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

Real potential, once the plan is clear.

San Rafael, Escazú, San José

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

26th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 21 conservation priority

Four of five readings

Water100

Soil—

Ecology22

Climate72

Pressure6

Weakest: PressureNot read: Soil

All five read on one axis: higher is better. Pressure scores calm, so a high number means little human pressure on this land. The unread pillars had their weight redistributed across the rest — reweighted, never guessed.

Standing

26thpercentile

Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 26th of all 100

Coverage

80%

weight read

9 of 14 layers answered

Nearly complete — gaps reweighted, not guessed.

Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the soil survey +2.

Where the capital goes

21/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 52

Best-fit model

Regenerative village

40 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

3.5ha

Elevation

1,078m

1,067–1,085 m

Slope

5.9°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

40%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

3,030mm/yr

+32% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+1.0°C

rain -6%

Soil carbon

not read

Nearest road

0.7km

Species records

9records

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 3,030 mm of rain falls here in a year. 40% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 5.9° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 304 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Tiribí, Río Virilla). The nearest road is 0.7 km off, and the nearest settlement is 1.5 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1 °C and -6% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Regenerating — almost no tree cover lost since 2000; rainfall up 32% 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

4 hectares at San Rafael of gentle land around 1,078 m. The ground reads 40% under canopy, 45% built. Water shapes it — 3,030 mm of rain a year, 304 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is Escazú, 1.51 km away.

Its vocationinhabit carefully

A community sited on the working matrix. Larger, accessible, and buildable near existing settlement, this matrix land has room for a regenerative community that keeps the habitat edges intact and restores the rest.

1,078 m elevation40% forest45% built5.9° slopeFrontier tier — outside the mapped network

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 · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · official, from a public or state record · estimated, from a model, not a measurement.

The forest here has held for a generation.

recordedThis canopy has held: 5% cover in 2000, 0% 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 +32.3% — this is a place whose water is changing, not holding.
derivedNote the disagreement: the observed archive moved +32.3%, while the 2050 model says -6%. Neither cancels the other — the archive is what happened, the model is one projection. Design for the envelope: drainage for the wet record, storage for the dry projection.

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.

observed304 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

Strong land, standing on its own.

derivedThe Land Score reads 53 against a conservation priority of 21.
derivedIts value is intrinsic rather than positional — the network does not depend on it, which frees what it can be.

What to doPlans here answer to the land itself, not to a network obligation.

Bears on what a plan owes the landscape · 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 4%.
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

Height is this land's climate insurance.

observedAt 1,078 m, today's mean sits at 20.5°C.
estimatedThe +1°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

running toward regeneration

40% tree cover on 3,030 mm of rain; 0% of the tree cover lost since 2000.

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

60% open ground on a 5.9° 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 1.5 km; 0% tree cover lost since 2000.

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 4-hectare parcel near San Rafael, Escazú, San José is workable land whose plan must come before the capital, scoring 53 out of 100. Its main strength is that a watercourse lies close to the parcel. The first move: commission a ground soil survey before any agricultural or restoration decision.

Opportunityhigh confidence

A watercourse lies close to the parcel.

Nearby surface water improves access to irrigation and supply and adds habitat value, though rights and distance still affect how usable it is.

Nearest mapped watercourse is about 0.31 km away (Río Tiribí).

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 °C mean temperature, -6% 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.

3,030 mm of rain per year. Nearest mapped watercourse is about 0.31 km away. The archive's 20-year trend reads about +32% — a swing that size deserves verification against local records before it informs any plan.

Terrainhigh confidence

The land is gently rolling.

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

Mean elevation 1,078 m, mean slope 6°, 18 m of relief.

Biodiversitylow confidence

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.

Only 9 biodiversity records nearby (GBIF, the global species-record archive).

Soillow confidence

No satellite soil data is available for this parcel.

Soil quality cannot be assessed remotely here, so a ground survey is needed before any agricultural or restoration decision.

The SoilGrids survey returned no data for this location.

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, 1.51 km to Escazú.

Accessmedium confidence

Official Costa Rican record places this in Escazú, Escazú, San José.

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

Jurisdiction: Escazú, Escazú, San José. 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 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 workable land whose plan must come before the capital. Its clearest strength to build from is that a watercourse lies close to the parcel.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

21Conservation priority

FrontierStepping stone

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 Volcánica Central–Talamanca, about 14 km · Área de Conservación Central / La Amistad-Pacífico (ACC / ACLAP)

This reads as a partial patch that extends the network's reach, scoring 21 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 52/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

52/100

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.

Corridorlow confidence

The nearest declared corridor is the Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca, about 14 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 Braulio Carrillo, Volcán Irazú / Turrialba, Parque Internacional La Amistad.

Nearest PNCB screening extent ~14 km. Extents are approximate — confirm against SINAC/PNCB.

Conservationmedium confidence

This reads as a partial patch — enhancing it extends the network's reach.

A partly-forested parcel beside the corridor works as a stepping stone: thickening its cover and connecting it to the neighbours widens the habitat that species can actually move through.

40% tree cover.

Hospitalitylow confidence

A modest hospitality layer is possible, but it is not the strongest card.

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 52/100, drawing on standing forest. 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
Thicken cover along the parcel's edges and watercourses to widen what species can move through.
First year
As a stepping stone or buffer, the parcel's contribution is its edges and riparian strips — the parts that link to the habitat next door.
Confirm on the ground · With an ecologist, identify the connecting strips worth planting first; confirm which watercourses cross the land at the end of the dry season.
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 — one of the country's oldest corridors, bridging the Central Volcanic Cordillera to the Talamanca massif.

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

26thpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt

26th percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

About typical for the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic. Water is its strongest signal here (73rd percentile), ecology its weakest (4th). Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-west.

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

73rd

Ecology

4th

Climate

73rd

Low pressure

10th

Landscape · 15 readings within 47 km

·Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-west
·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

20.5°C

Mean temp

+1.0°C

2050 Δ temp

-6%

2050 Δ rain

Exposure · Moderate

2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.0°C warmer than today's, with 6% 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

3,030mm/yr

Rainfall

+32.3%

20-yr trend

0.3km

To watercourse

Río Tiribí · Río Virilla · Río Bermúdez · Río Agres

Soil · 0–30 cm

Source unavailable for this parcel.

Terrain & cover

1,078m

Elevation

5.9°

Mean slope

40%

Forest

45%

Built

Built-up 45%Tree cover 40%Grassland 15%

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

Coelosis biloba · Aratinga finschi · Icterus galbula · Notiochelidon cyanoleuca

Pressure

0.7km

To road

1.5km

To settlement

Escazú

Forest history · since 2000

Tree cover 2000

0.0%

Cover lost

Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11

Record & context

What the state and its institutions say about this ground.

Costa Rica ecological corridor

Nearby

Corridor

~14 km away

Área de Conservación Central / La Amistad-Pacífico (ACC / ACLAP)

Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca

One of the country's oldest corridors, bridging the Central Volcanic Cordillera to the Talamanca massif.

Connects · Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo · Volcán Irazú / Turrialba · Parque Internacional La Amistad

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

See the corridor network →

Costa Rica land record

Escazú, Escazú, San José

Jurisdiction

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

Best-fit regenerative model

Regenerative village

40 / 100 fit

A community sited on the working matrix.

Larger, accessible, and buildable near existing settlement, this matrix land has room for a regenerative community that keeps the habitat edges intact and restores the rest.

Larger, accessible, buildable land near existing settlement — room for a regenerative community that leaves the habitat edges intact and restores the rest.

1,078 m elevation40% forest45% built5.9° slope3,030 mm rain/yr

Also consider · Watershed protection (39) · Regenerative agroforestry estate (35)

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 (52/100) 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
Commission a ground soil survey before any agricultural or restoration decision.
Before committing
Satellites cannot read soil biology, structure, or below-ground carbon — the very things that decide what will grow — and no survey data is available here.
Confirm on the ground · Take samples across the parcel for a lab test of organic carbon, texture, and pH, and dig a pit to read the profile and rooting depth.
02
Carry out a field biodiversity survey to see what the records miss.
First year
A thin record here usually reflects little survey effort, not little life; what actually lives on the parcel shapes both its value and its constraints.
Confirm on the ground · Have an ecologist survey across seasons; local naturalists and birders often already know the site.
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

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 · 9 layers→

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)

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)

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

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: Sentinel-2, the radar, the soil survey, the governance record, the thermal read — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Fri, 10 Jul 2026 23:50:05 GMT · 4.6s · synthesized by TERRA.