[OSM-newbies] coastline and mangrove forests

doug brown dougcb68 at hotmail.com
Thu Mar 19 13:05:34 GMT 2009


I am working on mapping San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=21.542&lon=-105.2876&zoom=14&layers=B000FTF

and encountered an issue that I feel requires some discussion.

San Blas is surrounded by extensive mangrove forests.  The original coastlines that were drawn, obviously using the Yahoo imagery as a source, has placed the coastlines on the landward side of these mangrove forests. 

My opinion is that this is inappropriate for two reasons.  1) I think of coastline as the boundary of the ocean--mangrove forests, though wet, are clearly not part of the ocean, and 2) anthropomorphically, the use of the mangroves is completely different than the use of the use of the ocean--mangroves are exploited on foot and the ocean requires boats.

My opinion about the estuaries that penetrate the mangrove forests is less clear, though I tend toward classifying them as inland water features with the coastline boundary being placed at the  sandbars at their mouths.

Is there any existing discussion related to this topic that somebody could point me to?  If not, how to proceed?

Cheers,
doug brown
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