GMS (Groundwater Modeling System) is water modeling application for building and simulating

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided int ...

from Aquaveo. It features 2D and 3D

geostatistics Geostatistics is a branch of statistics focusing on spatial or spatiotemporal datasets. Developed originally to predict probability distributions of ore grades for mining operations, it is currently applied in diverse disciplines including pet ...

stratigraphic Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

modeling and a unique conceptual model approach. Currently supported models include MODFLOW, MODPATH, MT3DMS, RT3D, FEMWATER, SEEP2D, and UTEXAS. Version 6 introduced the use of XMDF (eXtensible Model Data Format), which is a compatible extension of HDF5. The purpose of this Is to allow internal storage and management of data in a single HDF file, rather than using many flat files.

History

GMS was initially developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s on

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

workstations by the Engineering Computer Graphics Laboratory at

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

. The development of GMS was funded primarily by The

United States Army Corps of Engineers The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the military engineering branch of the United States Army. A direct reporting unit (DRU), it has three primary mission areas: Engineer Regiment, military construction, and civil wo ...

and was known until version 4.0, released in late 1999, as the ''

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

Groundwater Modeling System'', or ''DoD GMS''. It was

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desig ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

in the mid 1990s. Version 3.1 was the last version that supported

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is a proprietary software, proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise; current versions support HPE Integrity Servers, based on Intel's Itanium architect ...

IRIX IRIX (, ) is a discontinued operating system developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS architecture, MIPS workstations and servers. It is based on UNIX System V with Berkeley Software Distribution, BSD extensio ...

, OSF/1, and

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platforms. Development of GMS, along with development of WMS and

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

, was transferred to Aquaveo when it was formed in April 2007. A study published in the ''Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics'' in August 2000 stated that "GMS provides an interface to the groundwater flow model, MODFLOW, and the contaminant transport model, MT3D. MODFLOW is a three-dimensional, cell-centered, finite-difference, saturated-flow model capable of both steady-state and transient analyses. These two models, when put together, provide a comprehensive tool for examining groundwater flow and nitrate transport and accumulation". The study was designed to help develop a "permit scheme to effectively manage nitrate pollution of groundwater supplies for communities in rural areas without hindering agricultural production in watersheds".

Version history

Reception

A 2001 report prepared for the Iowa Comprehensive Petroleum Underground Storage Tank Fund Board stated that GMS was "a very user-friendly software package with strong technical support." Raymond H. Johnson, a hydrogeologist with the

US Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March ...

, called GMS 6.0 "a useful all around groundwater modeling package that offers the advantages of modular purchases, multiple model support, linkages to ArcGIS, conceptual model development, and integrated inversion routines." A 2006 report from the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses in

San Antonio, Texas San Antonio ( ; Spanish for "Anthony of Padua, Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the List of Texas metropolitan areas, third-largest metropolitan area in Texa ...

called GMS "the most sophisticated groundwater modeling software available".

References

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External links

GMS Wiki
Scientific simulation software Science software for Windows Hydrogeology software