[Tagging] on the name of a tag for landcover

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2012/8/15 Guillaume Allegre <allegre.guillaume at free.fr>:
> Could you please give a link to the FAO schema you are
> referring to?


http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y7220e/y7220e00.htm#Contents

basically they use a 2 phase classification system, where the first
phase is very simple and leads to 8 generic types of landcover. The
second phase refines those 8 classes.

IMHO in OSM it would make sense to have several tags describing
generic properties instead of having one single value with a very
specific class.

E.g. one tag might be vegetation=trees, shrubs, grass, "no", where
"no" could follow the definition given by the FAO, i.e. "a total
vegetative cover of less than 4% for at least 10 months of the year,
or an absence of Woody or Herbaceous life forms and with less than 25%
cover of Lichens/Mosses" which might sound complicated or lengthy, but
for most of the places you find in the real world it would be easy
because far from those limits)

another tag might describe whether it is a water covered area or not, etc.

cheers,
Martin