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Shaded-relief view of the land around Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

588 ha inside the gold line

2.5 km

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas Province

588 ha · 9.207, -83.784 · Costa Rica

61out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

Real upside, waiting on the work.

63rd percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 100 conservation priority

Water: 67
Soil: 47
Ecology: 72
Climate: 59
Pressure: 55

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

The reading in full

This 588-hectare parcel near Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 61 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: About 7% of the parcel is permanently under water. This area cannot be built on or farmed without major drainage or fill work, so it reduces the usable land and the cost of developing it. 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.

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: 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 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. 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 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 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

Terrain · shaded relief — Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas Province — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas 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

61out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

Real upside, waiting on the work.

Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas Province

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

63rd percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 100 conservation priority

Five readings

Water67

Soil47

Ecology72

Climate59

Pressure55

Weakest: Soil

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

Standing

63rdpercentile

Tropical · Neotropic · against 46 readings · 54th of all 100

Coverage

100%

weight read

8 of 8 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Where the capital goes

100/ 100 priority

Keystonehospitality fit 83

Best-fit model

Corridor anchor reserve

90 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

588ha

Elevation

134m

4–437 m

Slope

8.2°

Buildable bench

not read

Forest cover

88%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

7,550mm/yr

+4% over 20 yr

Warming to 2050

+1.0°C

rain -13%

Soil carbon

28.2g/kg

pH 5.5

Nearest road

0.8km

Species records

7,147records

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 7,550 mm of rain falls here in a year. 88% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground slopes 8.2° on average, enough to move water without tearing soil where roots hold it. 37 mapped watercourses cross the land (Quebrada Poza Azul, Quebrada Playa Hermosa). The nearest road is 0.8 km off, and the nearest settlement is 6.5 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1 °C and -13% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

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

588 hectares at Bahía Ballena of strongly rising land around 134 m. The ground reads 88% under canopy. Water shapes it — 7,550 mm of rain a year, 37 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is Uvita, 6.51 km away. It stands inside the Corredor Biológico Paso de la Danta connectivity network (screening extent — confirm against SINAC, the national conservation agency).

Its vocationprotect

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 88% tree cover inside a declared biological corridor and a conservation priority of 100, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.

134 m elevation88% forest8.2° slope7,550 mm rain/yrKeystone tier — secure now

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 rain record and the rain model point in different directions.

observedThe twenty-year archive moved +3.5% — a mild observed wetting.
estimatedThe 2050 projection says -13% — a strongly drier future.
derivedNeither cancels the other: the archive is what happened, the model is one projection. Design for the envelope — drainage for the wetting record, storage for the dry projection.

What to doSize water systems for both ends of the envelope: weight the archive for the next decade, the model for the 2040s, and verify against local records.

Bears on any plan that depends on rain · medium confidence

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

derivedThe Land Score reads 61, but conservation priority reads 100 — a 39-point gap.
officialIts position in the corridor network does work its standalone condition does not show.

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 water is unusually weak.

derivedAgainst 46 readings of like land (Tropical · Neotropic), this parcel's water ranks in the bottom 12%.
derivedAn unusual weakness is rarely bad luck — something specific happened or is happening here that its peers escaped.

What to doMake water 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 0.79 km from the parcel — access is cheap.
officialThe parcel does connectivity work inside Corredor Biológico Paso de la Danta — 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

88% tree cover on 7,550 mm of rain.

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

The edge and the road

access → clearing at the edge → more edge → more access

holding

road 0.8 km, settlement 6.5 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 588-hectare parcel near Bahía Ballena, Osa, Puntarenas Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside, scoring 61 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that about 7% of the parcel is permanently under water. Its main strength is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover. The first move: map how water moves and stands across the parcel before siting anything on it.

Riskhigh confidence

About 7% of the parcel is permanently under water.

This area cannot be built on or farmed without major drainage or fill work, so it reduces the usable land and the cost of developing it.

7% permanent open water, plus 3% under seasonal water (JRC Global Surface Water, 1984–2021).

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 8°, with 433 m of elevation change across the parcel.

Riskmedium confidence

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.

Projected change by 2050: +1 °C mean temperature, -13% rainfall. Exposure rated High.

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.

88% of the parcel reads as tree cover (satellite land-cover mapping). Naturalness is not verified.

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 (Quebrada Poza Azul).

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.

7,550 mm of rain per year. A watercourse crosses the parcel.

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.

7,147 biodiversity records nearby, including Ramphastos ambiguus and Ramphocelus passerinii (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.

28.2 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay 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 0.79 km to the nearest road, 6.51 km to Uvita.

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 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 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 land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. Its clearest strength to build from is that most of the parcel reads as tree cover.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

100Conservation 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 Paso de la Danta (screening) · Área de Conservación Pacífico Central / Osa (ACOPAC / ACOSA)

Inside the Corredor Biológico Paso de la Danta, this reads as intact habitat to secure, scoring 100 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 83/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

83/100

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 Paso de la Danta (screening).

This is a declared biological corridor in Área de Conservación Pacífico Central / Osa (ACOPAC / ACOSA) — land inside it carries a national connectivity mandate and is where conservation capital compounds, joining protected areas rather than standing alone. The corridor links Fila Costeña / Talamanca foothills, Parque Nacional Marino Ballena, Costa Ballena.

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.

88% 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 83/100, 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 — baird's-tapir connectivity from the coastal ridge down to the Ballena coast at Uvita and Dominical.

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

63rdpercentile · Tropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 46 readings · same thermal belt

54th percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

About typical for the 46 readings logged in Tropical · Neotropic. Ecology is its strongest signal here (86th percentile), water its weakest (12th). Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the east.

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Water

12th

Soil

23rd

Ecology

86th

Climate

73rd

Low pressure

17th

Landscape · 7 readings within 34 km

·Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the east
·Land reads weaker toward the north

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

24.8°C

Mean temp

+1.0°C

2050 Δ temp

-13%

2050 Δ rain

Exposure · High

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 13% 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

7,550mm/yr

Rainfall

+3.5%

20-yr trend

On site

To watercourse

Permanent water

3% seasonal

Quebrada Poza Azul · Quebrada Playa Hermosa · Río Morete · Río Uvita

Soil · 0–30 cm

28.2g/kg

Org. carbon

5.5

28%

Sand

43%

Clay

Terrain & cover

134m

Elevation

8.2°

Mean slope

88%

Forest

Built

Tree cover 88%Water 10%Grassland 1%

The living surface

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

Ecology

7,147

Recorded wildlife observations

GBIF · the global species-record archive

Ramphastos ambiguus · Ramphocelus passerinii · Hylophilus decurtatus · Coereba flaveola

Pressure

0.8km

To road

6.5km

To settlement

Uvita

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 / Osa (ACOPAC / ACOSA)

Conservation area

Corredor Biológico Paso de la Danta

Baird's-tapir connectivity from the coastal ridge down to the Ballena coast at Uvita and Dominical.

Connects · Fila Costeña / Talamanca foothills · Parque Nacional Marino Ballena · Costa Ballena

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

See the corridor network →

Best-fit regenerative model

Corridor anchor reserve

90 / 100 fit

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open.

With 88% tree cover inside a declared biological corridor and a conservation priority of 100, 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.

134 m elevation88% forest8.2° slope7,550 mm rain/yrinside a corridor

Also consider · Ecolodge / retreat (78) · Watershed protection (58)

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 (83/100) 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
Map how water moves and stands across the parcel before siting anything on it.
First visit
A large share reads as standing or saturated ground, which sets what can be built, farmed, or drained, and where.
Confirm on the ground · Walk the low ground at the end of the wet season and after heavy rain; a hydrologist can confirm the drainage pattern.
02
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.
03
Design to the 2050 climate projections rather than today's conditions.
First year
The land is strongly exposed to projected change, so species, water storage, and infrastructure should be chosen for the conditions ahead.
Confirm on the ground · Cross-check the projections against the memory of long-time residents on how the seasons have already shifted here.
04
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.
05
Walk the land to scope the regenerative work before committing capital.
First visit
The foundations are present and the upside is real, but sequencing the work well is what realises it.
Confirm on the ground · Read the water, soil, and cover on the ground, then plan the work from the most permanent layer down.

Questions to sit with

Standing under the canopy, is it one species or many — and which parts would you protect rather than replant?
Which of the wet ground is a problem to drain, and which is an asset to keep — and who downstream depends on how you answer that?
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 · 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 Fri, 26 Jun 2026 09:48:43 GMT · 5.5s · synthesized by TERRA.