Local Resource Map: What Do We Already Have Around Us?

A useful map begins with a functional boundary, not only an administrative one

Before we inventory resources, we define the area. It does not have to be a municipality. For practical use, a boundary based on travel time, accessibility and real connections is often more meaningful: what can be reached on foot, by bicycle, car or public transport within a time that still makes sense for the function in question.

FAO’s city-region food-system mapping notes that functional boundaries often cross administrative borders and can be revised as new information appears. The same principle applies to this article. A bakery across a municipal line may be more local in practice than a warehouse at the far end of our own municipality.

For the first map, we therefore choose a core area we can realistically inspect and, if needed, a wider ring for resources that do not exist nearby. The boundary is a working tool, not an identity line.

Most local maps begin with buildings. This article begins with people. A mechanic, nurse, gardener, electrician, accountant, programmer, teacher, cook, translator, beekeeper, driver, event organiser or someone who knows the older residents of a street may matter more than new infrastructure.

Asset-based approaches to community development stress the value of residents’ capabilities, associations and informal networks alongside institutions. We do not record only a profession. We record what a person can do, whether they want to participate, in what capacity, at what times and under what conditions.

Privacy is an important boundary. A public map must not become a list of vulnerable people, private phone numbers or sensitive capabilities without consent. For many purposes, a group contact or a simple indication that a capability exists is enough.

A place becomes a resource only when we know what it can be used for

A school, fire station, library, workshop, garage, warehouse, community room, park, agricultural plot or empty commercial unit may be a local resource, but a pin on the map tells us little. We need useful properties: size, accessibility, hours, electricity, water, sanitation, heating, disability access, storage and the rules for using the space.

The same place may have several functions. A school gym can be a sports facility, gathering point or temporary space during disruption. A restaurant has a kitchen, refrigeration and logistics. A car park offers vehicle access and open space. The map records capabilities, not merely building names.

We also record the owner or operator and the permission path. A resource that nobody is authorised to access is not a practical community fallback until access has been agreed.

Many useful capabilities already exist but are scattered: trailers, generators, pumps, chainsaws, hand tools, welders, refrigeration, vans, tractors, lifting gear, wheelchairs, radios or simply a tall ladder. It makes little sense for everyone to buy them. It makes more sense to know where they are and whether they are reachable when needed.

For equipment, we therefore record ownership, contact, condition, usage rules, required training, fuel or power requirements, and restrictions. A generator without fuel, a vehicle without a driver or a defibrillator locked away at night are very different resources from identical equipment with a clear access path.

This is the difference between an inventory and an operational map. An inventory says something exists. An operational map says whether it can be used.

Map food, water and energy as flows, not only locations

the articles from “Food: How Much Locality Increases Resilience?” through “Energy: From Consumer to Energy Cooperation” showed that locality in food, water and energy is not binary. This article therefore does not merely mark a farm, well or solar installation. It also records where critical inputs come from, where output goes, how it is stored, who distributes it and what happens during disruption.

FAO’s food-system mapping uses spatial information about actors, infrastructure and flows while also looking for bottlenecks and vulnerabilities. The same logic works more broadly: a local bakery is not an independent food source if it depends entirely on one distant supply route; local solar generation is not necessarily backup power if it technically cannot serve local users during a grid outage.

The map therefore adds source, capacity, normal flow, storage, critical inputs and an alternative path. Locality becomes a measurable capability rather than a geographic label.

A health centre, pharmacy, fire brigade, Red Cross branch, school, library, faith community, sports association, municipality, company, cooperative or informal group holds different resources and networks. For the map, what matters more is what they can actually do than what their official name is.

WHO community-mapping guidance emphasises existing local resources, capacities and structures, together with meaningful participation by people who know the place from within. For each organisation, we therefore record services, people, spaces, equipment, communication channels, normal operating times and a verifiable contact.

We do not assume that a public institution is always accessible or that a private actor is always closed to cooperation. We record the real access arrangement and, where possible, confirm it with the operator.

Two communities with the same number of people and the same equipment may have very different resilience. In one, people know one another, share contacts and already cooperate; in the other, resources remain invisible to each other. This article therefore maps relationships and connections as well: who already works with whom, who supplies whom, who can quickly reach a particular group, and which places already connect otherwise separate networks.

UNDRR’s local-resilience work stresses horizontal links among local partners as well as vertical links between local and wider levels. This matters: the aim is not to pull everything inside a local circle, but to know which bridges outward already exist and when we need them.

Useful map entries therefore include connectors: a person, organisation or piece of infrastructure through which two otherwise separate networks can quickly link up.

Presence is not capacity, and capacity is not availability

The most common resource-map error is counting: one clinic, two water tanks, three bakeries. That tells us nothing about how many people they can serve, when they operate or how much spare capacity they have. Every important resource therefore gets at least a rough estimate of capacity and current availability.

FEMA’s Community Lifelines similarly focuses not merely on the existence of systems but on their ability to deliver critical functions such as food and shelter, health, energy, communications, transportation and water. A local map needs the same sobriety. A rough, verified estimate is better than a precise number without context.

If capacity is unknown, we write “unknown”. That is useful information too, because it tells us what must be verified before the next step.

For every critical resource, record the operator, access path and point of failure

“Personal Dependency Audit: What Does My Life Actually Depend On?” asked who could interrupt access to a personal dependency. This article transfers the same question to a local resource. Who owns or operates it? Who holds the key, password, permit or contract? Is there one person, one supplier, one power connection or one application without which the resource stops functioning?

This step also preserves the Green Book’s supplementary intuition: a basic need and control over access to that need are not the same thing. The purpose is not to label an owner as a problem but to see the actual access regime and single points of failure.

Where a critical resource can fail at one point, we add an “alternative” field. If there is no alternative, we have found a gap that the articles from “From Five People to the First Local Core” through “Transition Without Collapse: Building Parallel Institutions” can later address.

Separate public, operational and sensitive layers of the map

A good resource map does not have to be fully public. The location of a library, public water point or repair shop can be open; a private medicine stock, the contact details of a vulnerable person, building keys or the precise location of valuable equipment do not belong in an unrestricted database.

It therefore makes sense to have at least two layers: a public layer containing information that anyone can safely see and an operational layer containing information needed by a verified group. Some details are best held only by a responsible contact person.

This keeps the map useful without turning it into a new privacy or security risk. The rule is simple: publish as much as cooperation requires, not as much as technology allows us to collect.

A resource map is a living document: important entries need a verification date

Local maps age quickly. People move, businesses close, contacts change, equipment breaks and access rules evolve. Every important entry therefore includes a last verified date and, where possible, the person or organisation that confirmed the information.

WHO and UNDRR treat community mapping as a participatory process rather than a one-off data collection exercise. This article also needs an owner: a small group or clear procedure for accepting corrections, merging duplicates and marking outdated information.

If nobody maintains the map, it eventually becomes a false sense of preparedness. A smaller current map is better than a large archive nobody trusts.

Twelve fields for a first real local resource map

The first pass requires no special software. A spreadsheet or paper map is enough. Create one row for each important resource and fill in these twelve fields:

1. Resource or capability: what exactly exists, or what can actually be done?
2. Category: person/skill, space, tool, food, water, energy, health, transport, communication, organisation or other.
3. Location or service area: where is the resource and what area can it realistically cover?
4. Contact: who can verify its condition and arrange access?
5. Operator/owner: who actually sets the conditions of use?
6. Capacity: how much can the resource realistically produce, store, move or serve?
7. Availability: when is it reachable and how much spare capacity exists?
8. Access conditions: cost, membership, permission, training, keys or other restrictions.
9. Critical inputs: electricity, fuel, internet, supply, staff or another dependency without which it stops working.
10. Point of failure: what single issue could disable it?
11. Alternative or connection: what other resource can take over the function, or where can we escalate outward?
12. Last verification: when and with whom was the information last confirmed?

If the first round produces only twenty or thirty genuine, verified entries, we already have more than an abstract list. We have the beginning of an operational local resource map.

This article does not end with an attractive map. Choose one gap or opportunity that the map reveals. Perhaps the area has plenty of tools but no sharing mechanism. Perhaps food producers exist but do not know one another. Perhaps several people have first-aid skills but there is no simple contact network.

The first 30-day step is therefore deliberately small: verify ten resources, confirm five contacts and choose one concrete need around which it would make sense to connect people. There is no need to found an organisation or solve the whole community.

“From Five People to the First Local Core” will continue exactly there: how five people and one clear need can become a first local core with purpose, boundaries and cooperation procedures without immediately creating a new hierarchy or a closed group.