Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are applied in a variety of electronic government situations, from tracing the origins and spread of foot and mouth disease on farms to locating crime hot spots for law enforcement. GIS have become indispensable to effective knowledge transfer within both the public and private sector.
However, as pointed out by Gottschalk and Tolloczko (2006) the level of sophistication varies among agencies applying GIS. Furthermore, the extent to which GIS interoperate with each other are subject to substantial variation. A survey on interoperability for GIS in the UK was conducted by the e-government unit of the Cabinet Office (2005b).