Public reading

Shaded-relief view of the land around Capellades, Alvarado, Cartago Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold6 ha inside the gold line
250 m
Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Capellades, Alvarado, Cartago Province

6 ha · 9.978, -83.810 · Costa Rica

79out of 100 · Land ScoreAnchor

The soil carries this one.

92nd percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 85 conservation priority

Water
95
Soil
100
Ecology
47
Climate
76
Pressure
71

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

The reading in full

This 6-hectare parcel near Capellades, Alvarado, Cartago Province is ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. It scores 79 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

Where the upside lies: The soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration. Carbon-rich soil holds water and nutrients well, supports higher yields and faster regrowth, and may qualify for soil-carbon programs. 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 very high. Abundant water supports productive growth but raises the risk of flooding, waterlogging, and nutrient leaching, so drainage and slope matter. The parcel sits at high elevation. Higher ground is cooler, which changes crop suitability and can ease heat stress, but may add access and frost considerations. 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. The parcel is relatively remote. Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs.

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 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 ecologically strong land whose work is stewardship, not repair. Its clearest strength to build from is that the soil is rich in organic carbon, a strong base for farming and restoration.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Capellades, Alvarado, Cartago Province
250 m
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Capellades, Alvarado, Cartago Province
250 m
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 soil carries this one.

Capellades, Alvarado, Cartago Province

92nd percentile for like land · Keystone tier · 85 conservation priority

Five readings

Water95strong
Soil100strong
Ecology47fair
Climate76strong
Pressure71strong

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

92ndpercentile

Neotropic · against 93 readings · 93rd of all 100

Coverage

8 of 8 layers answered

Every pillar read from live data.

Where the capital goes

85/ 100 priority

Keystonehospitality fit 70

Best-fit model

Corridor anchor reserve

85 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area
6.4ha
Elevation
3,049m
2,950–3,103 m
Slope
15.0°
Buildable bench
not read
Forest cover
85%
Canopy height
not read
Rainfall
3,946mm/yr
+5% over 20 yr
Warming to 2050
+1.3°C
rain -4%
Soil carbon
110.1g/kg
pH 5.1
Nearest road
1.1km
Species records
0records
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 3,946 mm of rain falls here in a year. 85% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is steep (15° on average), so every bare patch sheds water and soil fast. 49 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Playas, Río Coliblanco). The nearest road is 1.1 km off, and 14% of the parcel is cropped, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1.3 °C and -4% 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

6 hectares at Capellades of rolling land around 3,049 m. The ground reads 85% under canopy, 14% worked as cropland. Water shapes it — 3,946 mm of rain a year, 49 traced watercourses. It stands inside the Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca connectivity network (screening extent — confirm against SINAC, the national conservation agency).

Its vocationprotect

Protect the keystone; hold the connection open. With 85% tree cover inside a declared biological corridor and a conservation priority of 85, the leverage here is protection: secure the core so the connection it anchors stays open.

3,049 m elevation85% forest14% cropland15.0° slopeKeystone 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.

Sources & method · 8 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)
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)

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 10:07:54 GMT · 5.3s · synthesized by TERRA.