[Tagging] how to tag a salt flat

[Christoph Hormann]

On Tuesday 29 September 2015, joost schouppe wrote:
> Because they tend to be dry most of the time, and plants tend to
> dislike pure salt, they tend to look like a desert.
>
> How should one tag such a thing? I've seen three very different
> ideas:
> [...]

There is no established tagging for this, none of your suggestions seems 
particularly good:

- natural=desert is wrong for the salt flat itself in any case.  If it 
is a desert by whatever definition of desert it won't end at the edge 
of the salt flat usually.
- natural=wetland means water saturated soil which is correct only for a 
very short time span between the water covered state and the dry state.
- natural=water is questionable for areas that are never or only very 
sporadically covered by water.

For areas with regular (i.e. seasonal) saltwater cover natural=water + 
intermittent=yes/seasonal=yes + salt=yes would be right, otherwise 
there is no well matching established tagging.

You could of course think about tagging it geological=salt_pan but it 
might not be such a good idea to make the dominance of salt the 
defining criterion here - the more generic term would be 'dry lake'.

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/