The Jesús María River Basin is located in Costa Rica’s Pacific region, and covers 35,280 hectares of a diverse landscape comprised of forests, coffee plantations and fruit trees, mangroves, pastures, cash crops, water bodies, and urban areas.

Descending from a maximum elevation of 1,400 m through to the coastal zone, the basin also consists of several sub-basins that eventually drain into the Pacific Ocean via the Tivives wetland - a Wildlife Protected Area - with its mangrove and estuarine system.