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
5 km
Terrain · shaded relief · AWS Terrain Tiles
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
ReclaimCultivateRestoreAnchor
34th percentile for like land · Frontier tier · 38 conservation priority
Four of five readings
Water
100strong
Soil—not read
Ecology
37watch
Climate
72strong
Pressure
0watch
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
80%
weight read
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.
The parcel from orbit
Finding the latest clear satellite pass…
The land, in context
Reading the land's record…
Relationships
A parcel is a node in living systems, not an island. Each line below is derived from this reading itself.
Each line is tagged with how it is known: observed, measured from satellite or map data · official, from a public or state record · derived, reasoned from other readings on this page.
observed
This parcel is crossed by Río Tiribí
observed
This parcel is within reach of Río María Aguilar
official
This parcel sits beside Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca9 km away— PNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC
official
Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca is designed to connect Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo— PNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC
official
Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca is designed to connect Volcán Irazú / Turrialba— PNCB screening extent — confirm against SINAC
observed
This parcel lives beside Uruca0.25 km away
derived
This parcel is read against Subtropical · Neotropicp34 of 34 readings
Where it sits
A living system does not stop at the fence. The parcel is a node in each of these, and it plays a different part at each scale.
1
parcel
2,448 ha inside the boundary
mostly open ground
22% tree cover
2
corridor
Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca
in the working matrix, outside the corridor
9 km to the corridor
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: derived, reasoned from other readings on this page · observed, measured from satellite or map data · estimated, from a model, not a measurement.
For its kind of land, its calm (low pressure) is unusually weak.
derivedAgainst 34 readings of like land (Subtropical · Neotropic), this parcel's calm (low pressure) ranks in the bottom 4%.
derivedAn unusual weakness is rarely bad luck — something specific happened or is happening here that its peers escaped.
What to doMake calm (low pressure) 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
Height is this land's climate insurance.
observedAt 1,121 m, today's mean sits at 20.7°C.
estimatedThe +1.3°C projected by 2050 arrives on that cool baseline.
derivedAs the lowlands warm, land that stays temperate does double work: livable for people, refuge for species moving uphill.
What to doTreat elevation as an appreciating part of the asset — and design for the species arriving from below, not only the ones here now.
Bears on the decades ahead · 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
22% tree cover on 3,161 mm of rain.
Plant along the watercourses and the ridge: canopy there returns the most water to the rest.
Open ground and soil
bare or grazed ground → compaction → runoff → thinner soil
holding
78% open ground on a 1.6° 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 0.2 km, settlement 0.3 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 2,448-hectare parcel near Uruca, San José, San Jose Province is land with sound foundations and clear regenerative upside, scoring 55 out of 100. The reading that most shapes the work here is that the terrain is steep, which constrains construction and raises erosion risk. Its main strength is that a watercourse runs through the parcel. The first move: design roads and structures to the contour, and get a geotechnical and erosion assessment before any earthworks.
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 2°, with 230 m of elevation change across the parcel.
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 Tiribí).
Climatemedium confidence
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.
Projected change by 2050: +1.3 °C mean temperature, +2% rainfall. Exposure rated Moderate.
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.
3,161 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. 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.
71,938 biodiversity records nearby, including Quiscalus mexicanus and Zenaida asiatica (GBIF, the global species-record archive).
Soillow confidence
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 SoilGrids survey returned no data for this location.
Accesshigh confidence
Road and town access are close.
Good access lowers development and logistics costs but can raise encroachment pressure and land prices.
About 0.21 km to the nearest road, 0.25 km to Uruca.
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 a watercourse runs through the parcel.
Where the capital goes · corridor & deployment
38Conservation priority
FrontierWorking-land buffer
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.
Nearest declared corridor: Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca, about 9 km · Área de Conservación Central / La Amistad-Pacífico (ACC / ACLAP)
This reads as working land best held as a buffer, scoring 38 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 65/100) could fund the work from the already-worked ground.
65/100
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.
Corridorlow confidence
The nearest declared corridor is the Corredor Biológico Volcánica Central–Talamanca, about 9 km away (screening).
The parcel reads as outside the mapped network, so its connectivity value comes from what it holds and what protected land sits beside it rather than a corridor mandate. That corridor links Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo, Volcán Irazú / Turrialba, Parque Internacional La Amistad.
Nearest PNCB screening extent ~9 km. Extents are approximate — confirm against SINAC/PNCB.
Conservationmedium confidence
This reads as working land — its role is to buffer the core, not to be the core.
Land like this holds the corridor's edge: kept in low-impact use, it shields the intact habitat beside it from encroachment and gives the network room to breathe.
22% 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 65/100, drawing on relief for views, 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 with a local lawyer and pull the cadastral record; check eligibility for FONAFIFO's PSA payment (Pago por Servicios Ambientales — Costa Rica pays landowners to keep or restore forest) for reforestation or regeneration on the parcel.
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 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 — one of the country's oldest corridors, bridging the Central Volcanic Cordillera to the Talamanca massif.
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
34thpercentile · Subtropical · Neotropic
Ranked against 34 readings · same thermal belt
34th percentile against all 100 readings so far — the cohort rank above is the fairer one; this is the wider one.
About typical for the 34 readings logged in Subtropical · Neotropic. Water is its strongest signal here (73rd percentile), development pressure its weakest (4th). Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-west.
Percentile by reading · higher is better land
Water
73rd
Ecology
18th
Climate
73rd
Low pressure
4th
Landscape · 15 readings within 50 km
·Rainfall is declining across the landscape to the south-west
·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
Annual rainfall, 2004–2024 · mm
20.7°C
Mean temp
+1.3°C
2050 Δ temp
+2%
2050 Δ rain
Exposure · Moderate
2050 sits within a single planning horizon — about 24 years out. The models expect seasons here about 1.3°C warmer than today's, with 2% more 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
3,161mm/yr
Rainfall
-4.4%
20-yr trend
On site
To watercourse
0%
Permanent water
0% seasonal
Río Tiribí · Río María Aguilar · Quebrada Cas · Río Virilla
A watercourse on site and 0% permanent water are both true: the satellite archive counts open water wide enough to see from orbit, and a narrow or tree-covered channel runs below its 30 m pixels.
Soil · 0–30 cm
Source unavailable for this parcel.
Terrain & cover
1,121m
Elevation
1.6°
Mean slope
22%
Forest
70%
Built
Built-up 70%Tree cover 22%Grassland 8%
The living surface
What grows here, what is being lost, and what presses on it.
The rain row is one year alone — the Water panel's 3,161 mm is the long mean; single years swing around it.
2050
Temperature shift
+1.3 °C
Rainfall shift
+2 %
Exposure
Moderate — a real but workable projected shift
Resilience reading
72 / 100
The resilience reading is the climate pillar from the five dials above — one number, shown here beside the horizon it scores.
The headline projection is one model family (CMIP6 · MPI-ESM1-2-XR via Open-Meteo). The 2045–2049 window stands in for 2050, and expect is the honest word. Intermediate horizons (2030 · 2040) and 2100 are not shown because the engine has not read them — TERRA does not interpolate between measurements.
Best-fit regenerative model
Regenerative village
68 / 100 fit
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.
Larger, accessible, buildable land near existing settlement — room for a regenerative community that leaves the habitat edges intact and restores the rest.
1,121 m elevation22% forest70% built1.6° slope3,161 mm rain/yr
Also consider · Watershed protection (44) · Upper-watershed research station (42)
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 (65/100) 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
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.
02
Commission a ground soil survey before any agricultural or restoration decision.
Before committing
Satellites cannot read soil biology, structure, or below-ground carbon — the very things that decide what will grow — and no survey data is available here.
Confirm on the ground · Take samples across the parcel for a lab test of organic carbon, texture, and pH, and dig a pit to read the profile and rooting depth.
03
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
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.
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.