Springs Stewardship Institute

Springs Ecosystem Inventory and Assessment Consulting - The primary focus of our program is to inventory and assess springs ecosystems, and to make recommendations to land managers about improved stewardship. Land managers include private landowners, federal and state agencies, tribes, and other NGOs. We submitted an annual report for each project that included summary reports of data collected. We also provided a geodatabase to land managers, as well as hosting their data on Springs Online, our online database at https://springsdata.org. Most of SSI's support came from the US Forest Service. SSI has an MOU with the national-level forest service to manage all of their springs data. We also conducted ecological inventories for the State of Nevada.

Springs Online Data Portal - SSI developed and hosts Springs Online at springsdata.org. This online relational database contains information about 156,278 springs, primarily across the western United States. Data includes flow, water chemistry, vegetation, invertebrates, vertebrates, geomorphology, georeferencing, and images. It offers robust reporting capacity with downloads to Excel, Word, and GIS files. It also includes a spatial module that allows users to upload boundaries, apply various basemaps, and symbolize data. The database provides free access to 1,530 users - students, researchers, landowners, agencies, tribes, and other nonprofit organizations.

Springs Ecosystem Training - SSI provides educational material, training, and tools for the general public, students, researchers, landowners, agencies, tribes, and other nonprofit organizations. We provide protocols, general information about springs, a user guide for the online database, images, and a dichotomous key to identify springs types. In 2021 due to Covid, most of this information was made available through our website at SpringStewardshipInstitute.org, and through 30+ online meetings and trainings.