DuPage County GIS unveils Monarch/pollinator hub to map local habitats

Tom Recker, a GIS staff member for DuPage County, demonstrated a new ArcGIS “hub” the county is using to map pollinator and Monarch waystation sites and to coordinate input from residents and partner organizations. The hub provides three user levels, Recker said: public viewers, stakeholders who can add site information, and administrators who review and manage submissions.

Recker showed how stakeholders can use a spatial survey to draw a polygon on the map and attach form attributes so that each entry is linked to a location. "It's the technology is from ESRI. It's called a hub site," Recker said during the demonstration. He described an automated review workflow in which stakeholder submissions trigger an email notification to staff ("Lonnie" is named in the workflow) to verify and approve new sites before they appear publicly.

The presentation highlighted data-sharing features that allow DuPage County to ingest compatible data from outside organizations using ArcGIS Online, including regional partners, and to avoid duplicate mapping efforts. Recker also described testing of deep-learning models to classify land cover and automatically delineate probable open spaces for potential pollinator sites. "We're actually teaching the computer to look at things on the ground," he said, describing the goal of using automated classification to point planners to geographic gaps in pollinator coverage.

Vice Chair Lucy Evans thanked GIS staff for building an easy-to-use interface and emphasized the benefit of shared data across conservation organizations. The committee posed no objections to further development and offered general praise for the demonstration.

The tool is intended to help staff and partners identify areas where additional pollinator habitat work is needed and to streamline contributions from municipalities, park districts and residents. The county did not announce an exact public launch date during the presentation.