NDVI crop-health mapping, plantation topography, drainage planning, and accurate area surveys for the African palm, cacao, and plantain operations that drive Costa Rica's South Pacific lowlands — accurate to ±2cm and delivered in 72 hours.
Most coverage of Costa Rica's South Pacific focuses on Uvita's surf breaks, Ojochal's boutique hotels, and Corcovado's rainforest. But inland from that coastline, the Coto Colorado basin, Golfito canton, and the lowlands around Palmar Norte and Ciudad Neily carry one of the country's largest concentrations of commercial plantation agriculture — African palm (palma africana) feeding regional extractoras, cacao returning to the region after decades of banana-era decline, and plantain grown at scale for domestic and export markets. It is flat, hot, and wet almost year-round, a climate that grows plantations fast and hides problems just as fast under a closed canopy.
That scale and that canopy are exactly why South Pacific plantation agriculture is moving to the air. Walking a mature palm block tells an agronomist almost nothing beyond what is visible from the row he is standing in; a hand-held GPS walk of a plantation boundary is slow through dense planting; and root disease or drainage failure is usually invisible until a section of the canopy is already yellowing. A drone survey turns an entire plantation into precise, measurable data in a single morning — where the crop is stressed, how the land drains, exactly how many hectares are in production, and where water is pooling under the trees. To see what mapping your operation would cost, our instant quote calculator gives you a price in seconds.
Plantation drone work splits into two complementary jobs: seeing the health of the crop, and measuring the shape of the land beneath it. A multispectral sensor reveals plant vigour and stress across every hectare, while an RTK-controlled mapping flight — often paired with LiDAR to see through a closed canopy — delivers survey-grade terrain, drainage, and area data. Together they give an agronomist, an estate manager, and an owner a single, current picture of the whole operation. You can scope a one-time map or a full season of monitoring with our online quote calculator.
Multispectral imagery turned into NDVI maps that flag stressed zones — root disease, nutrient deficiency, pest pressure — across palm, cacao, and plantain blocks before the damage is visible from the ground, so you scout and treat the exact rows instead of the whole plantation.
±2cm terrain models, contours, and water-flow analysis that expose low-lying zones and blocked canals before they cause standing water and root disease — essential across the flat, high-rainfall Coto Colorado basin.
LiDAR flights that see through mature palm and shaded cacao canopy to model the true ground surface, giving accurate drainage and area data even on fully planted, closed-canopy blocks a camera-only survey cannot resolve.
Survey-grade area measurement of plantation blocks — more reliable than a cadastral declaration — for input planning, extractora delivery contracts, lease agreements, and reconciling actual production against title.
Open fields map well with photogrammetry alone, but a mature palm stand or a shaded cacao block is a different problem: the canopy is effectively continuous, and a standard camera only ever sees the top of it. LiDAR's laser pulses find gaps in the foliage and return from the true ground beneath, so the terrain model, drainage map, and hectare figure are built from real earth — not the canopy surface. For young plantings, boundary strips, and open access roads, photogrammetry remains the faster, lower-cost option, and we scope the right sensor — or a combination — to your plantation's canopy stage.
Tell us your location, the size of the operation, and your crop. We'll respond with a detailed scope and price within one business day.
Request a Quote WhatsApp UsA palm grower near Coto Colorado noticed a section of a large block looking duller than the rest but couldn't identify a clear cause while walking the rows — the mature canopy made it impossible to see the ground, and the discoloration was subtle enough to be dismissed as normal seasonal variation.
We flew the block with a multispectral drone and a LiDAR sensor in a single morning and processed the data within 72 hours into an NDVI crop-health map layered over an under-canopy terrain model. The two data sets together told a clear story: the dull zone sat directly over a shallow depression where an old drainage canal had silted in, and standing water beneath the canopy was the real cause of the stress — not disease.
This is the recurring value of mapping from the air across the South Pacific: canopy that hides problems from a walking crew is exactly what the combination of NDVI and under-canopy LiDAR is built to see through. Scope your own plantation survey with our online quote calculator.
All commercial drone operations in Costa Rica are regulated by the Dirección General de Aviación Civil (DGAC). Using a licensed operator protects your operation: data collected by an unlicensed flyer can be challenged, and an incident creates liability for the landowner. Our operations comply with current DGAC requirements, which apply consistently across every region we serve:
In the South Pacific, two things matter in practice: the controlled airspace around Golfito's Aeropuerto (GLF) airfield, and the proximity of many plantations to protected buffer zones near Piedras Blancas National Park and the Térraba-Sierpe wetlands. We plan flights around local airspace and coordinate the necessary authorisations near protected areas, so your plantation data is gathered lawfully and safely.
Our survey team mobilises throughout the South Pacific lowlands with full equipment — multispectral, LiDAR, and photogrammetry drones, RTK GPS base station, batteries, and field laptops — scheduling flights around the calm morning windows that give the cleanest agricultural imagery before afternoon storms build.
Want the broader picture of surveying in the region? See our South Pacific drone survey overview, or our national guide to agricultural drone surveys in Costa Rica.
Every South Pacific plantation drone survey includes a full set of processed outputs ready for your agronomist, engineer, or operations team:
Deliverables are compatible with AutoCAD, Civil 3D, ArcGIS, QGIS, and the major farm-management and GIS platforms. We also provide KMZ overlays for Google Earth on request. For a full breakdown of pricing, see our 2026 Costa Rica drone survey cost guide.
Drone Survey South Pacific Costa Rica — Regional Overview
Agricultural Drone Surveys in Costa Rica
How Drone Mapping Improves Crop Yields: NDVI & Multispectral Analysis
LiDAR vs Photogrammetry — Which Is Right for Your Project?
Costa Rica DGAC Drone Regulations 2026
Yes. A multispectral drone survey produces an NDVI vegetation-health map that flags stressed palms — from bud rot, red ring disease, nutrient deficiency, or poor drainage — days or weeks before the canopy discoloration is obvious from the ground. Across a large Coto Colorado or Corredores block, that early flag lets an agronomist walk directly to the affected rows instead of the whole plantation.
Yes. We produce ±2cm terrain models, contour maps, and water-flow analysis that show exactly how the region's heavy rainfall moves across a plantation — critical in the South Pacific, where poor drainage is the leading cause of root disease in palm and cacao. This data supports canal and drain layout, access-road planning, and identifying low-lying blocks at risk of waterlogging.
Yes. For terrain beneath a closed canopy — mature palm stands, shaded cacao, or plantation blocks bordering primary forest — we use LiDAR, whose laser returns penetrate gaps in the foliage to model the true ground surface, something a standard photogrammetry camera cannot see through. This gives accurate drainage and area data even on fully planted, mature blocks.
With RTK GPS control we measure area to survey grade — far more reliable than a cadastral declaration or a walked GPS boundary. This gives palm, cacao, and plantain operations accurate planted-hectare figures for input planning, extractora delivery contracts, lease agreements, and reconciling actual production against title.
Base pricing starts at $1,000 USD for up to 5 hectares, including the flight, RTK GPS control, full data processing, and all deliverables. Large plantations are quoted at $80 per hectare, with reduced rates for recurring crop-health monitoring across a season. We confirm scope and price within one business day — request a quote here.
From a small cacao block near Palmar to a thousand-hectare palm estate in Coto Colorado, we typically confirm availability and quote within 24 hours.
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