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# The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP)

                    - Overview
                    - What is Stewardship
                    - Why do STEW-MAP?
                    - STEW-MAP Step-By-Step
                    - People
                    - Resources

People across the country work together to plant and care for trees, share gardens, remove litter, plan river cleanups, and find other ways to green their communities. These land managers, non-profits, and volunteers build stronger, healthier, and more resilient landscapes. But who are these groups? And how might they boost their impact?

Started by scientists at the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, STEW-MAP pinpoints where stewardship groups are improving their surroundings. STEW-MAP helps stewards find novel partners and gaps in coverage. The project also recognizes agents of change in vulnerable communities — furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion.

First applied in New York City in 2007, STEW-MAP has since been realized in 12 communities around the world. 

### So far STEW-MAP has aided in:

                        - Supporting MillionTrees New York City . STEW-MAP data, paired with an Urban Tree Canopy Assessment, helped the city’s parks department plant and care for one million trees.
                        - Preparing for and responding to disaster.  The Mayor's Office in New York City partnered with STEW-MAP to find neighborhood groups helping people cope with extreme events like heat waves and floods. 
                        - Investing in networks . The Chesapeake Bay Foundation used Baltimore STEW-MAP data and insights to advocate for increased investment in networks and coalitions connecting neighborhood-based groups.
                        - Mapping partnerships.  The Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming used STEW-MAP to find who in their agency develops and manages external partnerships. This allowed the forest to support relationships, even in a division with high staff turnover. 
                        - Deepening local connections . Researchers and stewards in O’ahu, Hawaii collected data using STEW-MAP methods, creating a conversation space for civic groups. New coalitions focused on local environmental issues such as Rapid Ohia Death and fire management formed because of this process. 

## What is Stewardship?

**Stewardship**is defined as the activity or job of protecting, taking care of, or being responsible for something.

**Natural resource stewardship** refers to people’s efforts to take care of the natural world. These stewardship activities may take place on public or private lands and include actions such as tree planting and/or pruning, community gardening, watershed restoration, removal of litter or invasive species, creation of green public spaces or other community greening efforts, as well as activities that help conserve, improve, or address land, water, or air quality issues. STEW-MAP defines stewardship as consisting of six functions: conservation, management, education, advocacy, monitoring, and transformation.

**Civic engagement**means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes. Research findings have begun to illuminate the**transformative power of natural resources stewardship as an activity that naturally cultivates and strengthens civic engagement**. This relationship has powerful implications for individual and community health and well-being, as well as for the health and well-being of our democracy. In addition, leveraging stewardship interest and capacity can be a powerful way for governments, non-profits, and other organizations to achieve goals and outcomes that would otherwise be improbable or impossible with finite resources.

Research has shown that stewardship can help achieve the following objectives:
                      - Provides a means by which individuals and communities contribute to a purpose, and to the beauty and health of their environment.
                      - Serves as an outward cue of care and concern and can catalyze change and investment by internal and external forces in a community.
                      - Serves as a form of empowerment, especially in communities that have experienced hardship, economic divestment, or natural disasters.
                      - Plays a key role in helping communities recover from natural disturbances and human-caused disasters.
                      - Creates benefits that extend into the future by building and strengthening communities.

 

Strong civic engagement can yield strong communities. Leveraging stewardship capacity can be a powerful way for governments, non-profits, and other organizations to achieve outcomes that would otherwise be impossible with finite resources, and to create communities that are stronger, healthier, greener, and more resilient. Mobilizing this potential requires understanding what stewardship capacity and connections exist across a landscape and being able to connect these to form a model of shared stewardship.

As our cities, towns, and public lands face all kinds of challenges ranging from overstressed infrastructure to extreme weather, community-based civic groups often find themselves on the frontlines of response; these groups are capable of being nimble and coming up with effective locally driven solutions. In addition, today’s forest land managers face a range of urgent challenges, among them catastrophic wildfires, more public demand, degraded watersheds, and epidemics of forest insects and disease. All of these could benefit from an approach of shared stewardship, which STEW-MAP helps enable. STEW-MAP recognizes that there is an opportunity to discover and link the capacities of a range of stewardship groups that complement the capacities of government to create communities that are stronger, healthier, greener, and more resilient.

STEW-MAP does this by helping communities, governments, land management agencies, and nonprofits understand the social fabric of a landscape. STEW-MAP helps land managers make more informed decisions with stakeholders and stewards in mind. STEW-MAP data can accelerate landscape-scale conservation by promoting coordination, collaboration, and synergies across mixed ownerships and among diverse stewardship groups. STEW-MAP provides network information that can be crucial for emergency preparedness and recovery. The data can also help identify shifting social dynamics associated with megatrends affecting landscapes from city street corners to our nation’s forests.

Applications range from developing conservation goals or policies; to conducting and coordinating resource assessments, planning, and monitoring efforts; to effectively educating, messaging, and/or engaging stakeholder.

 

Click the list below to read stories of how STEW-MAP has been used by different partners:

#### San Juan, Puerto Rico: Unleashing the power of workshops for socializing and survey testing!

The STEW-MAP survey questions must be modified to suit the context of the city where the project will be implemented. Keeping this in mind, it is highly recommended to hold a workshop that brings together partners or collaborators to test the survey. During the workshop, aside from presenting the project, you can receive feedback on the relevance of the questions and topics, as well as on the clarity of survey instructions. Simultaneously, it serves to explain in detail how to fill out the survey. 

When STEW-MAP was implemented in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it took some time to receive responses. Because the project received support from members of the USFS who had previously worked on environmental governance in the city, they didn't need to hold a workshop to gain an existing list of groups and organizations. However, when the survey was initially sent, the groups did not respond as they were unaware of the project. To address this, a student from the University of Puerto Rico was awarded a scholarship to conduct in-person surveys, extending the data collection phase. 

This example highlights the importance of holding a workshop to familiarize groups with the project, reduce response time, and enhance the quality of questions and survey content. Conducting a workshop before launching the survey proves to be a powerful tool for building trust in the project and its members.

#### Lima, Peru: EcoRed  and the variety of ways to create an exhaustive list of groups

Ficus is an organization based in Lima, Peru. In 2021, the EcoRed project was implemented with the assistance of the USFS in Lima. This project was based on the STEW-MAP methodology and aimed to create a database and interactive maps that would allow land use managers, community organizations, non-profit organizations, and the public to see where hundreds of environmental management groups were working in the city of Lima. 

Before launching the survey, it is necessary to have a comprehensive and detailed list of all formal and informal groups, civil, governmental, and non-governmental organizations involved in environmental management activities in the city. Such an inclusive list doesn’t already exist in Lima, so Ficus members took several steps to compile a first draft. The search started on websites and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, through phone calls, and by consulting partners about other groups. 

In 2022, an oil spill occurred on the coasts of Lima, adversely affecting the flora and fauna of the Peruvian sea. Following this event, various protests erupted in the city demanding government action. Ficus members and volunteers participated in these events, discovering additional groups engaged in stewardship activities. Attendance at these events expanded the list of groups and organizations, a prerequisite before launching the survey. 

It is crucial for those following the STEW-MAP methodology to contact the largest number of groups, as this enriches the database. The primary goal is to provide all groups with equal opportunities to participate. 

FICUS's work extended beyond the development of a web map featuring groups operating in Lima. They carried out a series of publications focused on disseminating the results and the web map. For instance, a monthly Newsletter was crafted, showcasing the web map and providing guidance on navigating it. These publications also included information promoting environmental activities planned by the various groups comprising ECORED for the month. Additionally, a directory was compiled, featuring the mission, vision, objectives, address, contact details, and work area of the groups that participated in the survey. To culminate these efforts, a workshop was conducted with the groups to introduce and distribute the directory.

#### STEW-MAP La Paz: Connecting community with nature, and using creative strategies to incentive responses to the survey

STEW-MAP La Paz: Connected to the Community with Nature, has developed a communications plan comprising seven strategies for disseminating the survey. This plan aims to promote the survey among groups and organizations that act as stewards in La Paz City, Mexico. 

After launching the survey, Niparajá's team implemented the first strategy: bi-weekly reminders via email to the list of groups. These emails not only invited them to participate in the survey but also extended the team's support to address any questions personally, through phone calls, or via video calls.

Simultaneously with the survey launch, a radio campaign commenced to raise awareness among the citizens of La Paz about the project and its objectives. This campaign aimed to build trust and motivate people to respond. In addition to radio broadcasts, team members actively participated in interviews on local news programs. 

The third strategy involved consistently publishing information on social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram) to reach a diverse range of groups, including neighborhood groups, informal groups, and formal organizations (NGOs, Civic Associations, etc.). 

As the fourth strategy, Niparajá members participated in an event organized by the municipality and the organization Innovaciones Alumbra. Citizens were invited to map the areas they cared for, and considered important for the city's sustainability. As participants engaged in mapping, information about the survey and the objectives of the STEW-MAP La Paz project was shared, fostering trust among participants and the project. 

A strategy commonly employed by several projects is hiring full-time or part-time staff responsible for personally surveying groups, delivering printed surveys to group offices, or scheduling meetings to answer the survey via video call. In the case of STEW-MAP La Paz, two part-time individuals were hired midway through the project. They conducted surveys both in person and through video calls using the Zoom platform.

A novel strategy to encourage group participation was the creation of videos. These videos featured different group members explaining why they see themselves as guardians of nature and detailing the stewardship activities that they do such as monitor, manage, transform, educate, and advocate for the ecosystems present in the city. 

Finally, STEW-MAP La Paz held a raffle to incentivize participation. Groups that had already completed the survey were automatically entered into the raffle and notified through social media posts and emails, while groups that had not yet responded were reached out to again, this time sharing that they had a chance to win a flashlight, a thermos, or a backpack. This incentivized participation not only from groups but also from individuals.

 

#### Valledupar and Medellín, Colombia Integrating STEW-MAP with Other Tools for Greater Efficiency

The implementation of STEW-MAP in Colombia has been accompanied by Urban Tree Management Plans and i-Tree tools. 

STEW-MAP was implemented at two different levels. The project conducted in Valledupar was integrated into the city's Urban Tree Management Plan. This integration aimed to determine the number of groups involved in stewardship activities in the city and the composition of these groups. Forty-five groups responded to the survey, revealing that over 64% of them engage in management activities primarily in public parks. 

Furthermore, the project unveiled that civic groups are primarily composed of members, but they also have more than 600 volunteers. The programs and projects of these groups focus on parks, street trees, and forests. This information was crucial, aligning with the priority areas outlined in the Urban Tree Management Plan for the city. In this way, STEW-MAP provided valuable insights for the development of management plans and agreements. 

The second project implemented in Colombia was at the “comuna” scale. In this STEW-MAP Comuna 10, the project joined forces with i-Tree tools to understand the city's ecosystem services and explore how groups within the city could contribute to their improvement. The survey in this project received responses from 29 groups, with 86% of them engaged in territory defense and environmental education activities. The organizations primarily focus on gardening, urban forestry, urban agriculture, and the protection of water and air. 

A notable outcome of this project is the creation of an environmental network map. Based on the responses from the 29 organizations surveyed, an additional 82 organizations were identified as actively involved in environmental care activities within Commune 10. Such projects not only help identify connected organizations but also reveal the level of closeness between them. Combining this information with data obtained from i-Tree tools allows the initiation of creating management plans for urban trees at the city level. Currently, work is underway to expand this effort in Medellín, in support of developing an urban forest management plan.

 

#### MillionTreesNYC

STEW-MAP data have been used by the New York City Parks Department from the very beginning of the MillionTreesNYC Project. In 2007, a public-private partnership between the NYC Parks Department and New York Restoration Project launched a campaign with the lofty goal of planting one million new trees across New York City. In order to garner the support necessary to conduct this large-scale, multi-million-dollar project, NYC Parks made the case for trees as an important economic, and well as environmental investment, using research conducted by the USDA Forest Service. Projects such as i-Tree and the Urban Tree Canopy research provided context for where to plant the new trees, which would include street trees as well as more dense tree plantings in natural areas. Considering the scope and timeline of the project, the campaign leaders decided to convene, and advisory board made up of over 400 people representing over 100 organizations familiar with the various components of the project. These groups and individuals already had expertise in environmental education and engagement, as well as access to existing networks. Sub-committees within the advisory board included public policy initiatives, marketing and PR, and stewardship and education. The stewardship team was especially concerned with the long-term survival of the newly planted trees and attempted to shift the focus of the campaign from only planting to both planting and care. Laying the groundwork for long-term stewardship of new trees required a lot of community outreach. Small grants were distributed to organizations with existing stewardship work, including many of the botanical gardens across the cities. But reaching community members required a deeper understanding of the neighborhoods in question. Bram Gunther, former chief of NYC Parks Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources, explains, “Without understanding local actors and stewards it would been harder to get the trees in the ground in natural areas.” By partnering with existing stewardship groups, Million Trees amassed community investment in the new trees. “Their care was key in making these plantings meaningful to the community and giving the trees a ‘leg up’ as they were establishing themselves,” says Gunther. STEW-MAP was an important bridge in this part of the project. The Forest Service shared neighborhood-specific lists of community stewardship groups with Parks and NYRP, which enabled them to target their outreach and access existing networks of volunteers.

#### NYC Parks Stewardship Team 

When MillionTreesNYC finished in 2015, NYC Parks Stewardship was created to essentially care for and build on all that work we accomplished. Nichole Henderson-Roy, Senior Manager at Parks Stewardship, explains, "As million trees phased out, New York City stewardship became more prominent. Our goal and our focus is both to bring in those new folks who have never heard of us before, but also help sustain some of the folks who did come in from those million trees years and have that energy and that memory." Parks Stewardship was created in the hopes that the energy generated around million trees could be applied to ongoing acts of stewardship in the city. Their purpose is to connect New Yorkers to outdoor spaces beyond the major parks they may already visit, including the less familiar forested areas and wetlands, and the everyday nature of street trees and pocket parks. Their staff is situated to train people about the technical aspects of stewardship, like plant identification and invasive removal, so that anyone can gain the knowledge and comfort necessary to engage in stewardship, whether on a one-time or everyday basis.

One of the struggles facing new programs like Parks Stewardship is a lack of awareness. "People don’t realize they can go out there and do these activities, they don’t realize that these opportunities are available", says Henderson-Roy. She wants to be the bridge that connects New Yorkers to stewardship in a friendly and accessible way that encourages people to stay involved. "Million Trees officially ended about two years ago, and so we started that transition, because there was that big question of how this work will continue, even after a lot of time and resources and people power, including putting these trees into the ground, what is the next step?", says Henderson-Roy. "And so we realized people do want to come out, people want to be active, they want to share, and so we kind of became this funnel piece to make sure they had the resources and the training to be able to do that properly really, because it’s not just going in and pulling something out from the ground, you got to know what you’re doing, and we want to make sure people have that information and also that comfort."

Key to this mission is the ability to reach out to groups and individuals that may be able to serve as stewards. Nichole, who has been working with community groups for years, first learned about STEW-MAP as an outreach coordinator with Partnerships for Parks. In that role, she had to identify and connect with existing groups, and STEW-MAP gave her a place to start. "There were a couple of groups that I was even trying to see if they were still active or updated, and kind of cross-listing in our systems. That was sort of a challenge but even having somewhere to start is important.... when you are in this kind of work, starting from anywhere, like just having one starting point, even a name to help people identify is just really great," she says. In her current role, Henderson-Roy sees potential in STEW-MAP as a tool both to connect Parks Stewardship with groups looking for resources and support, and to help those groups identify and form partnerships with one-another. The groups she refers to can be anything from two people who organize annual cleanups to groups with 10 or more employees, with budget, non-profit status, and connections to council members or other people in positions of power. STEW-MAP is the only public interface that tracks all of these groups, regardless of size and legal status. While Parks Stewardship may not be able to provide the necessary tools and resources for all of these groups, they can assist in connecting groups to each other based on their needs and services offered.

In addition to fielding requests from existing groups, Parks Stewardship sometimes targets specific neighborhood and looks for existing groups to partner with. One example is the Green Neighborhoods Program, an 11-month program that identifies neighborhoods with high need to focus on through stewardship work. Choosing these neighborhoods is a multi-step process that uses physical GIS layers to identify areas with a lot of young street trees as well as natural areas with a wetland component. Additionally, staff looks at the accessibility of these areas to public transit, and the level of interest of neighborhood residents. Henderson-Roy sees STEW-MAP as a valuable tool in identifying future Green Neighborhoods, because it offers a social layer to their existing process. She envisions being able to quickly point out areas where there are gaps and overlaps in stewardship, and then easily reaching out to the groups identified.

Further, Henderson-Roy looks forward to seeing the 2017 STEW-MAP data and identifying other potential hubs of stewardship to focus their efforts. Parks Stewardship has already found certain neighborhoods that continuously turn out volunteers and is curious to see potential for volunteer engagement in additional areas. She explains, "Because everyone is short on resources and everyone is short on people...I get projects [from Parks] in areas where they really need volunteer support, and so my program acts as the bridge between them as the land managers and us as the connectors between people, so it will be really great to be able to even more closely identify folks from a specific neighborhood with the potential of matching up for these projects."

The nature of seasonal parks work makes it even more important to have living documentation of stewardship groups for new staff to be able to access and gain an understanding of the stewardship network. "[Turnover] is the nature of the business and we’re used to that, but any way that we can combat that with tools like this is fantastic," she says. Once the 2017 STEW-MAP data is cleaned and public, Henderson-Roy sees even further potential in using STEW-MAP to bring people together physically to network and share resources and ideas.

#### Gowanus Canal Conservancy

Gowanus Canal Conservancy, the environmental steward for the Gowanus Canal and Watershed, is an example of a STEW-MAP group that is both a respondent and potential data user. Andrea Parker, the Executive Director of GCC, explained that their mission is to "work to facilitate and steward an emerging network of open spaces around the canal through activating and empowering stewardship of the watershed". Gowanus, a rapidly changing neighborhood in Brooklyn, is famous for the highly contaminated Gowanus Canal, which was declared a Superfund site by the EPA in 2010. Over the next 10-15 years, the canal will be dredged and the sides and floor of the canal will be replaced with sheet tile and concrete. Parker said that the GCC is working to ensure that the voice of the community is included in Gowanus Canal planning. STEW-MAP has been an important tool is ensuring that GCC connects with new partners in a continually changing neighborhood. in this fight is one of the reasons Parker thinks STEW-MAP is important.

Parker first came across STEW-MAP in an article she read while in grad school for Landscape Architecture in Virginia. She was instantly intrigued by the concept and the network imagery that showed the connections between the many civic stewardship groups. GCC is situated as a community steward in multiple networks. "We have the neighborhood network that we work very closely with, and then we have kind of the larger city-wide CSO organizing network, as well as the larger citywide stewardship network, which I think is important because there’s kind of three scales at which we’re working," says Parker, "In addition to the community organizations, another layer to the network that we work with is green space organizations in Gowanus, so friends of parks, and block associations, and then the Park Slope Civic Council, like other folks that have stewardship functions...so I think the concept of STEW-MAP has helped us sort of grow those kinds of relationships." By using STEW-MAP, Parker could easily select and view all of the stewardship groups in the Gowanus Watershed, identifying potential new partners and visualizing the overlapping turfs in which they work. Conversely, smaller stewardship groups in the area could use STEW-MAP to find groups who, like GCC, have volunteers available to support their efforts.

GCC’s network relationships have been supported by STEW-MAP data in some concrete ways as well. Two years ago, when trying to figure out how to best steward bioswales, GCC partnered with the Forest Service to convene relevant groups. "We had that bioswale roundtable a couple of years ago, which was basically like STEW-MAP actualized, that all of these groups that are thinking about bioswale stewardship were in one room together." Parker says. Creating a list of stewardship groups that focus on bioswales was possible in part because of STEW-MAP data, which Forest Service researchers used to identify participants of the roundtable. The Gowanus Canal Conservancy has also partnered with the Urban Field Station on some grant applications and is interested in working towards building out a STEW-MAP tool that allows stewards to track their work and impact in real-time.

In reflecting on the impact of STEW-MAP, Parker shares, "I think it’s really important for us to be on the map. We know that [the Forest Service] works with the city and other citywide entities and I think it’s really important for us to be on the map, so other entities see where we are actively stewarding areas and where making connections will advance our work and the work others are doing." Changes in the Gowanus Canal will likely lead to more stewardship efforts, and the 2017 STEW-MAP data will allow Parker to locate new groups that have emerged in the area. "And then if there are other connections that can come from it that’s great." As Gowanus continues to change, these connections will become crucial. The 2017 STEW-MAP data, available this summer, will also allow Parker to locate new groups that have emerged in the area. "Neighborhood groups and nonprofits are essential to supporting the city’s stewardship of open spaces, and we want to ensure that we are all noticed."

#### Pratt Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative (SAVI) Lab

I think the most relevant piece for STEW-MAP is the work we do for community-based organizations and nonprofits," Jessi Braden says, speaking of the consulting services, training, and pro-bono work they do with external clients who have similar missions around supporting community. "Our goals are to enable these groups to advocate for themselves, tell stories, and campaign", she adds, noting that over half of the groups they work for have an environmental focus.

Braden first learned about STEW-MAP as an employee of the New York City Parks Department, when their partners at the Forest Service were gearing up to do the first STEW-MAP survey in 2006. The goal of capturing the work of civic stewardship groups resonated with her, and she was excited about the prospect of scientific qualitative data, something that is often hard to come by. Years later, she found herself teaching a GIS for sustainability course at Pratt, and she wanted her students to experience working with the unique dataset. "We had a section about community assets, so we introduced STEW-MAP as a way of thinking about social infrastructure since that type of data is so hard to find", Braden says. Her students had never seen a dataset like that and were intrigued by the possibilities of combining STEW-MAP data with more traditional kinds of open data. Braden explains, "STEW-MAP is so helpful for us because it captures a lot of qualitative information that we don’t typically have. STEW-MAP just gives us much more nuance about the social fabric of neighborhoods than we could ever glean from municipal open data."

In addition to the work they do with students, SAVI strives to help their community-based partners further their mission with data. "Our work has two primary focus areas, one being our analytical consulting projects and the other, which we find really exciting, is helping others to understand information and data through education to make sure they're using it in the best way possible," Braden says. Part of helping their partners is about learning from them and recognizing the value of their knowledge of their own communities. She adds, "It’s about understanding the capacity of people in these neighborhoods, because [nonprofits] have an intimate on-the-ground knowledge that we’ll never have. ll of the data they bring to us is extraordinarily useful to combine both with STEW-MAP, plus general open data - this is what allows us to truly understand a community. and STEW-MAP is a vital piece of the puzzles." For SAVI, using STEW-MAP data will deepen their knowledge of urban communities and allow them to better serve their clients.

Braden would love to see STEW-MAP data made into an interactive tool, "because this data is so complex, the ability to pick and choose what you want to focus on for one moment is going to be really critical in utilizing it for storytelling." This complexity is certainly a challenge, but it is one that SAVI looks forward to taking on. "I’m just very curious about what haven’t we thought of yet, what other ways can we find to communicate both the turfs, and the capacity of the groups in different ways". Looking forward, Jessie is eager about the prospect of working with the 2017 STEW-MAP data and finding new ways to share it with the public.

#### NYC Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency

The overlap between environmental stewardship and community resilience is often overlooked, yet it is key to understanding how to best leverage resources to inform emergency preparedness efforts. The Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency, a major data provider and STEW-MAP partner, recognizes the potential for collaboration between stewardship work and emergency preparedness to build stronger and more resilient New York City neighborhoods. Erika Lindsey, Senior Policy Advisor, describes their work, saying, "we’re focused on supporting resiliency and preparedness for the impacts of climate change with neighborhood-specific strategies". The Office of Recovery and Resiliency, or ORR, was originally the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, charged with implementing PlaNYC, the citywide planning report from the Mayor’s Office. After Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Bloomberg created the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency, which convened staff from multiple agencies to come together and create a plan for preparing the city for future climate-related disasters. Lindsey explains. "After the report was released, the Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency was created to implement the strategies that were developed."

Lindsey focuses on neighborhood-specific emergency preparedness strategies and works with many grassroots and community-based organizations. She realizes that the ties between people and sense of social cohesion are crucial in determining a community’s ability to bounce back from disaster, and she tries to support the groups on the ground to become more resilient in whatever way they need. "We maintain relationships with these groups and listen to their resiliency and preparedness needs. so if they tell us they need someone to sit down with them and do a plan then we’ll connect them to the agency that can help them....and if they tell us ‘we’ve got it, we just need to be connected to funds,’ then we will try to connect them that way."

ORR’s connection to these many community groups made the agency a crucial stakeholder and advisor for STEW-MAP 2017. The Social and Economic Resiliency team from ORR was pulled into the process early on in the development of the survey. Even before joining the STEW-MAP advisory board, Lindsey had heard of the project from conversations with colleagues in the data visualization and mapping circles. "I was aware of the previous STEW-MAP, but I hadn’t yet known that they were going to update it, at the time it was aligned with a few other mapping initiatives that were happening, so it made perfect sense as another way that data can help inform how we try to measure social capital and community resilience," she remembers.

ORR was excited to collaborate with STEW-MAP because of the possibilities the data and public map would open up for community groups looking to engage in disaster preparedness and recovery. "I feel like STEW-MAP did a good job of capturing some of the smaller groups that might not necessarily come up in some of the ways that we engage with other community organizations", Lindsey says. She notes that recognizing the efforts of these smaller groups is an important part of building social resilience, "because you are targeting groups that are already civically engaged, and that is one of the indicators of social resilience, so it was very in line with our goals." She adds, "and also we want to support any efforts that will help build social cohesion, so if these groups can look each other up and it helps them connect to each other that is also beneficial."

Although the connection between stewardship groups and disaster preparedness might not jump out automatically, Lindsey thinks they have more in common that people might realize. "I think that there are links that might not be obvious, I’m again thinking of groups that work with seniors and stewardship groups, there are opportunities for people to support each other, and people may not be aware of the stewardship and this is a way to get them plugged in...I feel like these groups are dealing with the same challenges and the same adversaries, so there is an opportunity for them to coordinate and benefit. In an emergency, hopefully one or both of those groups will be prepared, and they can collaborate and be helpful to one-another," Lindsey says. By visualizing the spatial relationships of all of these groups, and the opportunity to overlay it with other datasets, ORR will be able to point groups towards STEW-MAP to support them in connecting and supporting one-another in the face of future disasters.

#### Hawaii

In their data collection efforts, STEW-MAP Oʻahu engaged with environmental groups as well as other civic organizations including canoe clubs, Hawaiian civic clubs, hālau hula, and schools. Out of this broadly inclusive process, researchers and stewards were able to pinpoint groups that don’t identify their primary goal as environmental stewards but are undertaking important work caring for the land. Throughout the STEW-MAP process, these groups had space to connect and discuss shared intentions and goals. New coalitions focused on local environmental issues such as Rapid Ohia Death and Fire management formed as a result of this process.

#### Los Angeles

The city of Los Angeles is currently developing a local biodiversity index that will measure a number of indicators over the next 5-10 years. One of these indicators is management of natural resources. In planning for this index, the city used data from STEW-MAP to better understand the current landscape of stewardship organizations. The LA River STEW-MAP project was run by the Angeles National Forest which is situated at the headwaters of the city. This forest was in the process of trying to maximize partnerships and increase visitation of urban residents to the forest.

#### Bridger Teton National Forest

USDA Forest Service employees on the Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) in Wyoming carried out a two-phase approach to STEW-MAP in order to better inform the way they manage and grow partnerships on a national forest. In the first phase of their project, BTNF conducted an internal staff survey to better understand who within their agency develops and manages their external partnerships. The results of this partnership survey can be found here. The data collected in this survey has been particularly valuable for tracking which staff members manage which external stakeholders and partners, particularly in a division with high turnover.

#### Baltimore

### Leveraging social networks for more effective funding

The Chesapeake Bay Funders Network is an organization that supports grantmakers and philanthropic organizations throughout the Chesapeake region. Recently, they became interested in investments in the city of Baltimore and wanted to better understand why it felt like some investments were resulting in lasting impacts. The Network used STEW-MAP data to better understand the network of stewards and partners across Baltimore. They used this empirical evidence to describe something they had sensed: the Baltimore network is highly fragmented but there are many nodes of connections throughout. As a result, the network created a request for proposals with five years of funding to hire someone to work as a node within the network and focus on building cross-jurisdictional connections within the city. 

### Targeting public programming where it is needed most

The Baltimore Department of Public works utilizes the STEW-MAP data to understand the network of stewards who could be partners in their water education and greening initiatives. They analyzed the data to better understand where there were “resource deserts”, areas where there were fewer stewardship groups and established social networks and targeted the GROW centers in these areas. This allowed the department of public works to target resources such as trees, mulch, plants, trainings and workshops in the neighborhoods with the most need.

### STEW-MAP Step-By-Step

STEW-MAP has been successfully implemented in many places over the last decade. The methodology can be adapted for a range of budgets, for cities or regions of various sizes, and in urban, suburban, and rural areas. The six main steps are described briefly below: For additional information, see the list of resources for download below.

 

### Additional Resources

                      - Overview STEW-MAP Webinar
                      - Step-by-Step Slide Presentation
                      - General Technical Report
                      - NYC 2017 Survey
                      - Implementation Guide  
                      - Geospatial Guide
                      - Networks Guide
                      - STEW-MAP One-Pager

## Key Personnel

### Global Team Leads

                              -    									Erika Svendsen							  			Research Social Scientist		   									Lindsay K. Campbell										Research Social Scientist											Michelle Johnson							
			Research Ecologist		
Collaborators  - Baltimore, Maryland:  Morgan Grove  and  Nancy Sonti
  - Bridger-Teton National Forest:  Evan Guzik
  - Chicago, Illinois:  Cherie Fisher
  - Denver, Colorado:  Travis Warziniak
  - La Paz, Mexico:  Arantxa Zamora
  - Lima, Peru:  Camilla Satler
  - Los Angeles, California:  Michele Romolini
  - Medillin, Colombia:  Maria Arroyave
  - Missouri:  Alison Koopman
  - New York City, New York:  Erika Svendsen ,  Lindsay K. Campbell , and  Michelle Johnson
  - North Kona, South Kohala, O'ahu, Hawai'i:  Heather McMillen
  - Paris, France: Nathalie Blanc
  - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:  Michelle Johnson  and  Krista Heinlen
  - San Juan, Puerto Rico:  Tischa Munoz-Erickson
  - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic:  Tischa Munoz-Erickson
  - Seattle, Washington:  Weston Brinkley
  - Southeast New England:  Bryce DuBois
  - Springfield, Massachusetts:  David Bloniarz
  - Valledupar, Columbia:  Michelle Johnson
Interactive Maps and Dashboards-  Interactive Map    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2011 Baltimore Map							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2019 Baltimore Map							Interactive Map
									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2021 Bridger-Teton Map							
-  Interactive Map    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2021 Bridger-Teton Dashboard							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2022 Lima, Peru Map							Interactive Map
									 The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2019 Medellín Map							
-  Interactive Map    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2019 Medellin, Colombia Map (en español)							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2017 New York Map							Interactive Map
									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2017 New York City Story Map							
-  Interactive Map    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2017 New York City Dashboard 							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: Hawai'i Phase I North Kona and South Kohala and Phase II O'a...							Interactive Map
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Hawai'i Social Networks 							
-  Interactive Map    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: O'ahu Dashboard							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: O'ahu Social Networks 							Interactive Map
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Southeast New England 2021-2022 							
-  Interactive Map    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2020 Springfield, MA Map							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2020 Springfield, MA Dashboard							Dataset Downloads -  Dataset    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Baltimore Data 2011 and 2019							   Interactive Map									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2021 Bridger-Teton Map							Dataset
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Lima, Peru 2022 Data 							
-  Dataset    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: Comuna 10 in Medellin, Colombia Data Download 							   Dataset									The Stewardship Mapping Project: New York City Data Downloads							Dataset
									The Stewardship Mapping Project: North Kona and South Kohala Hawai'i Data Download							
-  Dataset    									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2021 O'ahu Data Download							   Dataset									The Stewardship Mapping Project: San Juan, Puerto Rico Data Download							Dataset
									The Stewardship Mapping Project: Springfield, MA Data Download							
Videos about STEW-MAP-  Video    									The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project - Lightning Talk Introductory Video							        STEW-MAP Locations-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Baltimore, MD 							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Bridger-Teton National Forest							Project
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Chicago 							
-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Denver							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project: La Paz, Mexico							Project
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Lima, Peru							
-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Los Angeles, CA							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Medellín, Colombia 							Project
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Missouri							
-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): New York City 							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): North Kona and South Kohala, Hawai'i							Project
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Oahu and Ko'olaupoko, Hawai'i							
-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Paris, France							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Philadelphia 							Project
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): San Juan, Puerto Rico							
-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Seattle							Project
									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Southeast New England							
-  Project    									The Stewardship Mapping Project (STEW-MAP): Springfield, MA							   Project									The Stewardship Mapping Project: Valledupar, Colombia							Research Highlights-    									Stewardship Mapping with National Forests to Support Equitable, Inclusive Partnerships							        Publications-             Holly  Caggiano, Laura F. Landau, Lindsay K. Campbell, Michelle L. Johnson, Erika S. Svendsen.         2022.  Civic Stewardship and Urban Climate Governance: Opportunities for Transboundary Planning 
-             Sophie  Plitt, Erik  Andersson, Michelle  Johnson.         2022.  Assessing the Potential of E-Tools for Knowledge Sharing and Stewardship of Urban Green Infrastructure 
-             Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika S. Svendsen, Michelle L. Johnson, Sophie  Plitt.         2022.  Not by trees alone: Centering community in urban forestry 
-             Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika  Svendsen, Michelle  Johnson, Laura  Landau.         2021.  Activating urban environments as social infrastructure through civic stewardship 
-             Michelle L. Johnson, Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika S. Svendsen.         2020.  Conceptualizing, analyzing, and supporting stewardship: examining the role of civil society in environmental governance 
-             Heather L. McMillen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika S. Svendsen, Kekuhi  Kealiikanakaoleohaililani, Kainana S. Francisco, Christian P. Giardina.         2020.  Biocultural stewardship, Indigenous and local ecological knowledge, and the urban crucible 
-             Lorien  Jasny, Michelle  Johnson, Lindsay K. Campbell, Erika  Svendsen, Josh  Redmond.         2019.  Working together: the roles of geographic proximity, homophilic organizational characteristics, and neighborhood context in civic stewardship collaboration networks in Philadelphia and New York City 
-             Michelle L. Johnson, Dexter H. Locke, Erika  Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Lynne M. Westphal, Michele  Romolini, J. Morgan. Grove.         2019.  Context matters: influence of organizational, environmental, and social factors on civic environmental stewardship group intensity 
-             Erika S. Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Dana R. Fisher, James J.T. Connolly, Michelle L. Johnson, Nancy Falxa Sonti, Dexter H. Locke, Lynne M. Westphal, Cherie LeBlanc Fisher, Morgan Grove, Michele Romolini, Dale J. Blahna, Kathleen L. Wolf.         2016.  Stewardship mapping and assessment project: a framework for understanding community-based environmental stewardship 
-             T.A. Muñoz-Erickson, L.K. Campbell, D.L. Childers, J.M. Grove, D.M. Iwaniec, S.T.A. Pickett, Michelle Romolini, Erika S. Svendsen.         2016.  Demystifying governance and its role for transitions in urban social–ecological systems 
-             Michele Romolini, R. Patrick Bixler, Morgan Grove.         2016.  A Social-ecological framework for urban stewardship network research to promote sustainable and resilient cities 
-             James J.T. Connolly, Erika S. Svendsen, Dana R. Fisher, Lindsay K. Campbell.         2015.  Mixed methods analysis of urban environmental stewardship networks 
-             Dana R. Fisher, Lindsay Campbell, Erika S. Svendsen.         2012.  The organisational structure of urban environmental stewardship 
-             Erika Svendsen.         2009.  Cultivating resilience: urban stewardship as a means to improving health and well-being 
-             Erika s. Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell.         2008.  Urban ecological stewardship: understanding the structure, function and network of community-based urban land management 
-             Laura  Landau, Lindsay K. Campbell, Michelle  Johnson, Erika  Svendsen, Holly  Berman.         2019.  STEW-MAP in the New York City region: survey results of the Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project 
-             Dexter H. Locke, Kristen L. King, Erika S. Svendsen, Lindsay K. Campbell, Christopher Small, Nancy F. Sonti, Dana R. Fisher, Jacqueline W.T. Lu.         2014.  Urban environmental stewardship and changes in vegetative cover and building footprint in New York City neighborhoods (2000-2010) 
  STEW-MAP Summarized -  Fact Sheet    									What is STEW-MAP?							   Infographic									The Stewardship Mapping Project: 2 Page Infographic							External Publications-  Dacks, R; McMillen, H; Heimuli, P; Kahaleua, K; Burgess, S; Giardina, CP; Francisco, K; Ticktin, T. 2021. The Important Role of Environmental Stewardship Groups in Supporting Human Health and Well-Being. Front. Sustain. Cities 3:710355. doi: 10.3389/frsc.2021.710355 
-  Filip, A. 2020. Local institutions of culture as urban stewards: in pursuit of hybrid governance in Warsaw, Poland. Ecology and Society, 25(2). 
-  Blanc, Nathalie. 2019. From ordinary environmentalism to the public environment: theoretical reflections based on French and European empirical research. Ecology and Society, 24(3). 
-  Golly, Krystle M., "Assessing the distribution of environmental stewardship organizations and their relationship to the demographics of Los Angeles County" (2017).LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations. 319. http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/etd/319 
-  Brinkley, W.; Wolf, K.L.; Blahna, D.J. 2010. Stewardship Footprints and Potential Ecosystem Recovery: Preliminary Data for Seattle and Puget Sound. In D.N. Laband (ed.) Linking Science and Society. Proceedings of Emerging Issues Along Urban/Rural Interfaces III. Atlanta, GA. 
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