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Shaded-relief view of the land around San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600, the parcel boundary drawn in gold

100 ha inside the gold line

500 m

Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600

100 ha · 11.306, -85.921 · Nicaragua

47out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

The upside is here. Shape it deliberately.

13th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 40 conservation priority

Water: not read
Soil: 70
Ecology: 48
Climate: not read
Pressure: 55

16 of 26 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: sentinel2_ndvi, sentinel1_rtc, osm_reach…

The reading in full

This 100-hectare parcel near San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600 is workable land whose plan must come before the capital. It scores 47 out of 100 on the Dear Wise Earth Land Score.

The risks that most shape a decision here: About 36% 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. This ground has a recorded seismic history. Repeated strong earthquakes within reach shape how anything here should be built — seismic design codes, slope stability under shaking, and insurance all follow from it.

Where the upside lies: 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. This land sits on a mapped global hotspot of underground fungal biodiversity. Mycorrhizal networks move nutrients, water, and carbon through the soil; over 90% of these hotspots lie outside protected areas, so intact underground biodiversity here is rare conservation and restoration value that no above-ground survey shows.

The wider readings: The land is gently rolling. Gentle terrain is generally workable with only minor grading for buildings or roads. The largest buildable bench is 74.16 ha. This is the piece that decides what fits: a single footprint, its access, and its services all have to land on contiguous ground. Everything beyond it is a second site, not an extension of the first. 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. The parcel is relatively remote. Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs. The human fabric around this land is measured, not assumed. Labour, emergencies, schooling, and electricity all run on these distances — they decide what daily life and operations here actually cost. Jurisdiction is part of the parcel. Permits, zoning, water, and roads run through these offices — knowing who governs the land is the first step of every plan that touches it.

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, 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 workable land whose plan must come before the capital. Its clearest strength to build from is that a watercourse runs through the parcel.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600 — Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600 — 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

47out of 100 · Land ScoreCultivate

The upside is here. Shape it deliberately.

San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600

ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor

13th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 40 conservation priority

Three of five readings

Water—

Soil70

Ecology48

Climate—

Pressure55

Weakest: EcologyNot read: Water, Climate

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

13thpercentile

Subtropical · Neotropic · against 34 readings · 12th of all 100

Coverage

55%

weight read

16 of 26 layers answered

Partly read; treat the score as provisional.

Silent: Sentinel-2, the radar, the infrastructure reach +7.

Where the capital goes

40/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 58

Best-fit model

Coastal buffer · blue–green

63 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area

100ha

Elevation

17m

-1–83 m

Slope

4.4°

Buildable bench

74.16ha

76% of the land under 10° slope

Forest cover

51%

Canopy height

not read

Rainfall

not read

Warming to 2050

not read

Soil carbon

37.7g/kg

pH 6.5

Nearest road

1.2km

Species records

2,588records

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

51% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (4.4° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. 132 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río San Juan, Río Brito). The nearest road is 1.2 km off, and the nearest settlement is 5 km away, which is the pressure the edge lives with.

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

Protect the blue–green edge. Low-lying at 17 m, this reads as a coastal or wetland edge — an inference from elevation and water signals, not a measured shoreline distance, so confirm how near the water actually is. If it holds, the play is the buffer: protect and restore it for blue carbon (the carbon coastal wetlands lock away), storm defence, and nursery habitat. To help: keep the ground covered through the dry season; rested pasture and cover crops turn this loop around on gentle slopes.

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

100 hectares at San Juan del Sur of rolling land around 17 m. The ground reads 51% under canopy. Water shapes it — 132 traced watercourses. 3,321 people within 5 km, governed from San Juan del Sur.

Its vocationbuffer

17 m elevation51% forest4.4° sloperiver on siteFrontier 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 · scientific, from a published study.

The forest here has held for a generation.

recordedThis canopy has held: 30% cover in 2000, 2.3% 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

Independent instruments agree: water stands on this land.

recordedThe satellite water archive has watched 5.9% of this parcel go seasonally wet since 1984.
observedA watercourse crosses the parcel itself.
derived2 separate signals point the same way — this is not one sensor's opinion.

What to doSite anything permanent off the wet ground, and walk the parcel in the rainy season before believing any dry-season visit.

Bears on where anything gets built · high confidence

This land comes with neighbours.

scientific3,321 people live within 5 km — this land sits inside a living community.
derivedThe neighbours are the labor pool, the early-warning system, and the social license — the project's first relationships are already living here.

What to doMeet the neighbours before the notary — what they know and want will shape everything here.

Bears on daily life and operating cost · 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.

Open ground and soil

bare or grazed ground → compaction → runoff → thinner soil

holding

49% open ground on a 4.4° 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 1.2 km, settlement 5 km; 2.3% tree cover lost since 2000.

Distance is doing the work here; keep it, and do not build the road that would end it.

Reading the place

This 100-hectare parcel near San Juan del Sur, Rivas, 48600 is workable land whose plan must come before the capital, scoring 47 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that about 36% of the parcel is permanently under water. Its main strength is that a watercourse runs through the parcel. The first move: map how water moves and stands across the parcel before siting anything on it.

Riskhigh confidence

About 36% 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.

36% permanent open water, plus 6% under seasonal water (JRC Global Surface Water, 1984–2021).

Riskhigh confidence

This ground has a recorded seismic history.

Repeated strong earthquakes within reach shape how anything here should be built — seismic design codes, slope stability under shaking, and insurance all follow from it.

146 earthquakes ≥ M5 within 100 km in 50 years, strongest M7, most recent M5.2 in 2026 (USGS catalog).

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 (Río San Juan).

Opportunitymedium confidence

This land sits on a mapped global hotspot of underground fungal biodiversity.

Mycorrhizal networks move nutrients, water, and carbon through the soil; over 90% of these hotspots lie outside protected areas, so intact underground biodiversity here is rare conservation and restoration value that no above-ground survey shows.

100% of the parcel is in the top decile of predicted arbuscular (crop-partner) fungal richness (SPUN Underground Atlas, Van Nuland et al. 2025, 1 km).

Terrainhigh confidence

The land is gently rolling.

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

Mean elevation 17 m, mean slope 4°, 84 m of relief.

Terrainhigh confidence

The largest buildable bench is 74.16 ha.

This is the piece that decides what fits: a single footprint, its access, and its services all have to land on contiguous ground. Everything beyond it is a second site, not an extension of the first.

76% of the parcel lies at or under 10°; largest contiguous piece 74.16 ha at about 6 m; read on ~10 m cells from the Terrarium DEM.

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.

2,588 biodiversity records nearby, including Calocitta formosa and Pitangus sulphuratus (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.

37.7 g/kg soil organic carbon in the top 30 cm, clay loam texture, pH 6.5 (ISRIC SoilGrids).

Accesshigh confidence

The parcel is relatively remote.

Distance from roads and towns means lower encroachment pressure and more privacy, but higher transport and operating costs.

About 1.24 km to the nearest road, 4.95 km to El Bastón.

Accessmedium confidence

The human fabric around this land is measured, not assumed.

Labour, emergencies, schooling, and electricity all run on these distances — they decide what daily life and operations here actually cost.

3,321 people live within 5 km (WorldPop 2020).

Accesslow confidence

Jurisdiction is part of the parcel.

Permits, zoning, water, and roads run through these offices — knowing who governs the land is the first step of every plan that touches it.

Nicaragua · Rivas · San Juan del Sur — 14,741 people in the governing unit.

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, 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 workable land whose plan must come before the capital. Its clearest strength to build from is that a watercourse runs through the parcel.

Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment

40Conservation 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.

This reads as a partial patch that extends the network's reach, scoring 40 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 58/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.

58/100

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.

Conservationmedium confidence

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

A partly-forested parcel works as a stepping stone between the standing habitat around it: thickening its cover and connecting it to the neighbours widens the habitat that species can actually move through. No declared corridor is mapped here — the network in question is the nearby forest itself.

51% 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 58/100, drawing on standing forest, water on site. 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 and cadastral record, and check what conservation-finance the jurisdiction offers before committing.
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 confirm the zoning and any sustainable-tourism certification locally.
04
Set a wildlife baseline and re-read it — camera traps on the parcel's connecting edges.
Ongoing
Funders and partners judge conservation land by whether wildlife actually uses 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 and track movement between the parcel and the habitat beside it.

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.

How it compares

13thpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic

Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt

12th percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.

Reads below most of the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic — stronger than 13%. Soil is its strongest signal here (71st percentile), ecology its weakest (35th). Land reads stronger toward the north-east.

Percentile by reading · higher is better land

Soil

71st

Ecology

35th

Low pressure

53rd

Landscape · 2 readings within 47 km

·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

Source unavailable for this parcel.

Water

—mm/yr

Rainfall

—%

20-yr trend

On site

To watercourse

36%

Permanent water

6% seasonal

Río San Juan · Río Brito · Quebrada El Bastón · Quebrada Mata de Cana

Soil · 0–30 cm

37.7g/kg

Org. carbon

6.5

35%

Sand

32%

Clay

Clay loam

Terrain & cover

17m

Elevation

4.4°

Mean slope

51%

Forest

Built

Water 44%Tree cover 43%Mangroves 8%Bare / sparse 3%Grassland 2%

Siting

74.16ha

Largest bench

contiguous, at ~6 m

76%

Buildable

at or under 10°

16.2°

Steep end

90th percentile

—

Faces

no dominant aspect

Measured on ~10.0 m cells across 9,999 points of elevation. Screening geometry from open terrain data — confirm on the ground before siting anything.

The living surface

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

Ecology

2,588

Recorded wildlife observations

GBIF · the global species-record archive

Calocitta formosa · Pitangus sulphuratus · Melanerpes hoffmannii · Coragyps atratus

Pressure

1.2km

To road

5.0km

To settlement

El Bastón

Forest history · since 2000

30%

Tree cover 2000

2.3%

Cover lost

2013

Latest loss

Hansen Global Forest Change GFC-2023-v1.11

Below the surface

The fungal networks that move water and nutrients between roots.

Underground fungal networks

Hotspot

Arbuscular fungi

100% of parcel in the global top decile

Outside

Ectomycorrhizal fungi

partners of much timber & forest

SPUN Underground Atlas (Van Nuland et al. 2025) · 1 km model of underground fungal biodiversity · hotspots = global top decile of predicted richness

Best-fit regenerative model

Coastal buffer · blue–green

63 / 100 fit

Protect the blue–green edge.

Low-lying at 17 m, this reads as a coastal or wetland edge — an inference from elevation and water signals, not a measured shoreline distance, so confirm how near the water actually is. If it holds, the play is the buffer: protect and restore it for blue carbon (the carbon coastal wetlands lock away), storm defence, and nursery habitat.

Low-lying coastal or wetland ground where mangrove, marsh, and dry forest meet the sea. Protect and restore the buffer — blue carbon, storm defence, nursery habitat.

17 m elevation51% forest4.4° sloperiver on site

Also consider · Watershed protection (31) · Ecolodge / retreat (30)

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 (58/100) is a different scale that asks only whether a small lodge could fund the stewardship here — the two need not match. Two theses share this ground: this lens reads its low wet edge — the buffer to restore; the deployment lens reads its standing patches — the stepping stones. One parcel holds both, so walk it to see which dominates, and let the first money follow that.

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
Confirm tenure and boundaries against the legal record before relying on this reading.
Before committing
The satellite record cannot see title, easements, or where the legal boundary actually runs — the things that govern what you can do here.
Confirm on the ground · Pull the title and cadastral record, and walk the boundary against it on the ground.
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

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.

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Sources & method · 16 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 memory — Wikipedia

Named places and features of the surrounding landscape (titles + distances)

article · live

CC BY-SA 4.0 (titles/facts)

Place — OpenStreetMap / Nominatim

Nominatim reverse geocode

settlement · live

ODbL 1.0

Terrain — AWS Terrarium (Mapzen)

Terrarium elevation tiles

~10 m (z12) · 2017

Open (attribution)

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

Underground fungal networks — SPUN Underground Atlas

Top-decile hotspots of predicted AM + ECM fungal richness (Van Nuland et al. 2025, Nature; Zenodo 10.5281/zenodo.14871588)

1 km · 2025 (v1.0)

No explicit license on the archive — terms requested from SPUN; attribution given

Siting — TERRA geometry on the AWS Terrarium DEM

Per-cell slope and aspect (Horn), buildable share, largest contiguous bench

~10–80 m cells, parcel-dependent (stated per reading) · 2017 (DEM)

Open (attribution)

Watershed — Global Watersheds (MERIT-Hydro)

Upstream basin + downstream flowpath (screening hydrography)

~90 m · MERIT-Hydro 2019

Open service, no warranty; engine open source (delineator)

Population — WorldPop

Gridded population 2020 (parcel + 5 km ring sums)

~100 m · 2020

CC-BY 4.0

Seismicity — USGS earthquake catalog

M ≥ 5 events within 100 km, past 50 years

event · live catalog

US public domain (cite USGS)

Fire history — MODIS burned area

Last burn year and burn count per 500 m pixel over the record since 2001

500 m · cutout build date (see data/fire/PROVENANCE.json)

NASA open data (cite LP DAAC)

Governance — public map record + Wikidata

Administrative hierarchy + structured facts of the governing unit

admin unit · live / Atlas data year 2022

ODbL 1.0 / CC0 / PNUD-UCR publication (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.

Unavailable for this parcel: Sentinel-2, the radar, the infrastructure reach, osm adaptation, the heritage record, the rain record, the governance record, the thermal read, the biomass map, the hazard screen — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Sat, 19 Sep 2026 20:02:41 GMT · 19.1s · synthesized by TERRA.