GMS was initially developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s on
Unix workstations by the Engineering Computer Graphics Laboratory at
Brigham Young University. The development of GMS was funded primarily by The
United States Army Corps of Engineers and was known until version 4.0, released in late 1999, as the
Department of Defense Groundwater Modeling System, or
DoD GMS. It was
ported to
Microsoft Windows in the mid 1990s. Version 3.1 was the last version that supported
HP-UX,
IRIX,
OSF/1, and
Solaris platforms. Development of GMS, along with development of
WMS and
SMS, 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==