Public reading

Shaded-relief view of the land around Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold86 ha inside the gold line
1 km
Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province

86 ha · 9.497, -83.794 · Costa Rica

44out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

A plan would change this land's answer.

7th percentile for like land · Corridor tier · 66 conservation priority

Water
66
Soil
not read
Ecology
43
Climate
11
Pressure
66

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

The reading in full

This 86-hectare parcel near Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province is workable land whose plan must come before the capital. It scores 44 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. 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.

The wider readings: Rainfall is very high. Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter. Biodiversity records are moderate. There is a reasonable but incomplete picture of local wildlife; a ground survey would sharpen any conservation or regulatory assessment. 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 parcel is relatively remote. Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs. Official Costa Rican record places this in Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, 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: The longer record suggests a land that has been drawn down rather than held: about 10% of its tree cover has been cleared since 2000, most recently in 2018. 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. 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.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province
1 km
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province
1 km
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

44out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

A plan would change this land's answer.

Páramo, Pérez Zeledón, San Jose Province

7th percentile for like land · Corridor tier · 66 conservation priority

Four of five readings

Water66strong
Soilnot read
Ecology43fair
Climate11watch
Pressure66strong

Weakest: ClimateNot 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

7thpercentile

Neotropic · against 93 readings · 8th of all 100

Coverage

10 of 15 layers answered

Nearly complete — gaps reweighted, not guessed.

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

Where the capital goes

66/ 100 priority

Corridorhospitality fit 71

Best-fit model

Watershed protection

63 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area
86ha
Elevation
1,577m
1,325–1,776 m
Slope
11.7°
Buildable bench
not read
Forest cover
59%
Canopy height
not read
Rainfall
6,261mm/yr
+121% over 20 yr
Warming to 2050
+1.5°C
rain -44%
Soil carbon
not read
Nearest road
1.8km
Species records
159records
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 6,261 mm of rain falls here in a year. 59% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 11.7° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 22 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Savegre, Río Nuevo). The nearest road is 1.8 km off, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1.5 °C and -44% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

Holding10.2% of the tree cover lost since 2000; rainfall up 121% over twenty years.

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

86 hectares at Páramo of strongly rising land around 1,577 m. The ground reads 59% under canopy. Water shapes it — 6,261 mm of rain a year, 22 traced watercourses.

Its vocationprotect

Hold the water tower for everyone downstream. Steep (11.7°), wet (6,261 mm/yr), and river-laced, this parcel's highest value is the water and soil it keeps in place for everyone downstream.

1,577 m elevation59% forest11.7° slope6,261 mm rain/yrCorridor tier — restoration compounds here
Its trajectoryunder pressurethe canopy was opened recently and has not come back.

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.

Sources & method · 10 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)
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
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 Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:49:29 GMT · 12.1s · synthesized by TERRA.