[Tagging] How To Tag Coastlines That Are Also Cliffs?

[Chris Hill]

Zeke Farwell wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm newly subscribed to the tagging list so I apologize if this has 
> been discussed before.  Didn't find it in the archives though.  I'm 
> working on an area of coastline made up of cliffs and beaches 
> <http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=36.94817&lon=-122.065787&zoom=18&layers=B000FTF>. 
>   There are many sections where the cliffs drop directly into the 
> ocean and it seems logical to me that the coastline and the cliff 
> should be represented as one single way where this is the case. 
Coastlines are at the mean high-water mark. This could be at a variety 
of types of surface: cliffs, beach, shingle, sea wall, mud and so on.  
The way tagging seem to be heading is to add extra modifying tags. So 
the natural=coastline could have an extra coastline=* tag. This could be 
something like

coastline=cliff
coastline=beach
coastline=shingle
coastline=sea_wall
coastline=mud
coastline=mangrove

This process allows renderers and other processors to continue using the 
natural=coastline tag as now, but later they may add rendering or 
processing for the extra coastline types. There may also be cliffs or 
sea walls inland of the mean high-water mark, but these are already 
catered for.

Cheers, Chris