The spreadsheet is the master database used for the research with the title of "Stakeholder engagement and knowledge co-production for better watershed management with the Freshwater Health Index" to be published on <em>Current Research in Environmental Sustainability</em> in late 2022. The data include narratives for six principles on stakeholder engagement and knowledge co-production. These principles were derived by combining Talley et al’s five principles for effective stakeholder engagement (Talley et al. 2016) with Norström et al’s four principles for knowledge co-production (Norström et al. 2020). The six principles were aligned with the components of the freshwater health index (FHI) framework. Project leaders from nine FHI case studies completed a text table based on the description of the six principles and their FHI factors. This process generated the present master qualitative database with narrative responses. The socio-ecological context for each case study is provided for contextualization.