Selecting a GIS for a national water management authority

Owing to the complex, inter-disciplinary nature of geographical information systems (GIS), and to the wide variety of commercial GIS software available, considerable effort is needed to select software and hardware which most nearly matches an agency's requirements. This paper discusses the selection of a GIS for a national water management authority, from a pilot study through the formulation of technical specifications and benchmarking, to the procedure for final evaluation