GECOT, the Graph-based Ecological Connectivity Optimization Tool, is an open-source C++ tool designed to tackle systematic conservation (or restoration) planning problems. Given a graph representation of the landscape for each target species, a list of actions for improving the graphs elements and a budget, GECOT allows to select a group of actions whose cost is below the budget and whose impacts on the Landscapes maximizes the ecological connectivity, measured with the Probability of Connectivity indicator (PC).

Installation

For Windows, download and run the last released installer.

For Linux, download and extract the precompiled binaries of the last release.

Otherwise, follow the build instructions to compile GECOT locally.

Usage

$ gecot_optimize --help
GECOT — Graph-based Ecological Connectivity Optimization Tool
Version: 1.0 (built on Dec  1 2024)

Usage:
  gecot_optimize --help
  gecot_optimize --list-algorithms
  gecot_optimize <algorithm> --list-params
  gecot_optimize <algorithm> <instance> <budget> [<parameters> ...]

Allowed parameters:
  -h [ --help ]             Display this help message
  -A [ --list-algorithms ]  List the available algorithms
  -P [ --list-params ]      List the parameters of the chosen algorithm
  -a [ --algorithm ] arg    Algorithm to use
  -i [ --instance ] arg     Instance JSON file
  -B [ --budget ] arg       Budget value
  -o [ --output-json ] arg  Output solution data in JSON file
  --output-csv arg          Output solution value in CSV file
  -v [ --verbose ]          Enable all logging informations
  -q [ --quiet ]            Silence all logging except errors

Acknowledgments

This work has been funded by Region Sud and Natural Solutions (PhD thesis of François Hamonic), and by the ERC project SCALED, grant n°949812 (postdoctoral position).