Abstract
The Stewardship Mapping and Assessment Project (STEW-MAP) is designed to answer who, where, why and how environmental stewardship groups are caring for our urbanized landscapes. This report is intended to be a guide for those who wish to start STEW-MAP in their own city. It contains step-by-step directions for how to plan and implement a STEW-MAP project. STEW-MAP is both an empirical study of a city's or region's civic environmental stewardship resources and a publicly available online database to help support environmental stewardship broadly in these cities. The project adds a social layer of information to biophysical and urban geographic information on "green infrastructure" in cities. STEW-MAP highlights existing stewardship gaps and overlaps in order to strengthen organizational capacities, enhance citizen monitoring, promote broader public engagement with on-the-ground environmental work, and build effective partnerships among stakeholders involved in urban sustainability.
Keywords
environmental stewardship,
public engagement,
partnerships,
urban landscapes,
geospatial mapping,
social networks
Citation
Svendsen, Erika S.; Campbell, Lindsay K.; Fisher, Dana R.; Connolly, James J.T.; Johnson, Michelle L.; Sonti, Nancy F.; Locke, Dexter H.; Westphal, Lynne M.; LeBlanc Fisher, Cherie; Grove, J. Morgan; Romolini, Michele; Blahna, Dale J.; Wolf, Kathleen L. 2016. Stewardship mapping and assessment project: a framework for understanding community-based environmental stewardship. Gen. Tech. Rep. 156. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 134 p. https://doi.org/10.2737/NRS-GTR-156.
