Public reading

Shaded-relief view of the land around Uruca, San José, San Jose Province, the parcel boundary drawn in gold2,448 ha inside the gold line
5 km
Shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles

Uruca, San José, San Jose Province

2,448 ha · 9.949, -84.103 · Costa Rica

55out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

The water is willing. Follow it.

34th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 38 conservation priority

Water
100
Soil
not read
Ecology
37
Climate
72
Pressure
0

7 of 8 sources answered · higher is better on every pillar; pressure reads calm · silent: soilgrids

The reading in full

This 2,448-hectare parcel near Uruca, San José, San Jose Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside. It scores 55 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.

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.

The wider readings: Models project a warmer and wetter climate here by 2050. Expect a warmer and wetter 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 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. A count this size also reflects heavy survey effort — this is a well-watched landscape, so read it as well-documented rather than proportionally richer than its quieter neighbours. 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.

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 a watercourse runs through the parcel.

The ground and its cover

Terrain · shaded relief — Uruca, San José, San Jose Province
5 km
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
Land cover · ESA WorldCover 2021 — Uruca, San José, San Jose Province
5 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

55out of 100 · Land ScoreRestore

The water is willing. Follow it.

Uruca, San José, San Jose Province

34th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 38 conservation priority

Four of five readings

Water100strong
Soilnot read
Ecology37watch
Climate72strong
Pressure0watch

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

34thpercentile

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

Coverage

7 of 8 layers answered

Nearly complete — gaps reweighted, not guessed.

Silent: the soil survey.

Where the capital goes

38/ 100 priority

Frontierhospitality fit 65

Best-fit model

Regenerative village

68 / 100

Fit from published rules over the indicators.

The land in numbers

Area
2,448ha
Elevation
1,121m
1,016–1,246 m
Slope
1.6°
Buildable bench
not read
Forest cover
22%
Canopy height
not read
Rainfall
3,161mm/yr
-4% over 20 yr
Warming to 2050
+1.3°C
rain +2%
Soil carbon
not read
Nearest road
0.2km
Species records
71,938records
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 3,161 mm of rain falls here in a year. 22% of the parcel is under tree cover, and the ground is nearly flat (1.6° on average), so water lingers rather than runs. 19 mapped watercourses cross the land (Río Tiribí, Río María Aguilar). A road runs against the boundary, and settlement sits within a kilometre, which is the pressure the edge lives with. By 2050 the models expect +1.3 °C and +2% rain, so every flow above runs a little differently than it does today.

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

2,448 hectares at Uruca of strongly rising land around 1,121 m. The ground reads 22% under canopy, 70% built. Water shapes it — 3,161 mm of rain a year, 19 traced watercourses. The nearest settlement is Uruca, 0.25 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.

1,121 m elevation22% forest70% built1.6° slopeFrontier tier — outside the mapped network

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 · 7 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
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.

Unavailable for this parcel: the soil survey — the affected pillars were reweighted, not guessed.

Generated Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:55:36 GMT · 12.0s · synthesized by TERRA.