This site is home to Circuitscape, Linkage Mapper, and Gnarly Landscape Utilities. All are free and open source. Circuitscape borrows algorithms from electronic circuit theory to predict connectivity in heterogeneous landscapes. Linkage Mapper uses least-cost corridor analysis, circuit theory, and barrier analysis to map corridors, detect pinch-points and restoration opportunities within them, and identify important core areas and corridors. Gnarly Landscape Utilities automates the creation of core area maps and resistance layers needed for connectivity modeling.

See the tabs above for more info, downloads, and other connectivity modeling tools and resources.

January 2019 - Circuitscape v5 (beta) binaries are now available.

November 2018 - Circuitscape v5 is now available. The new Circuitscape is a complete overhaul with speed improvements. You can use the command line version by following the instructions on the GitHub project page. Download links coming soon.

July 2016- The Circuitscape user community keeps growing. We’ve compiled some example applications including new fields like crop science, archaeology, fire risk management, and epidemiology.

March 2014- Circuitscape 4.0 is now up. After a complete overhaul, Version 4.0 sports major speed and functionality improvements.

March 2014- Need to create resistance or core area layers? Check out the new Gnarly Landscape Utilities.

Oct 2013- Circuitscape can now be called from an ArcGIS toolbox. No more converting input grids to ASCII format! Just install the ArcGIS toolbox from our downloads page when you install Circuitscape.

More News

“One glorious map” using Circuitscape to model species responses to climate change almost breaks the internet. More here and here.

Authors

Circuitscape was written by Brad McRae, Viral Shah, Tanmay Mohapatra, and Ranjan Anantharaman. More details about the authors here.

Acknowlegments

We are especially grateful to NASA and The Nature Conservancy for Circuitscape 5.0, a major upgrade to Circuitscape using the Julia language. The Wilburforce Foundation funded Circuitscape 4.0 and the Python version of Circuitscape. The Cougar Fund also contributed to the original development. We also wish to thank the Washington Program of The Nature Conservancy and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis for supporting Brad McRae and the University of California, Santa Barbara for supporting Viral Shah while they collaborated on the project.