[Tagging] natural=bay on areas

[Christoph Hormann]

On Monday 27 March 2017, Andrew Harvey wrote:
>
> What water body is Botany Bay
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botany_Bay part of?
>
> I don't think it's right too tag the inside of the bay as coastline.
> "A coastline or a seashore is the area where land meets the sea or
> ocean" the inside of the bay isn't the sea, hence the water/land
> boundary isn't the coastline.

I have had this discussion countless times in other cases and Botany Bay 
is not even a borderline case.

It is a bay of the Tasman Sea/Pacific Ocean.  Ecologically it is a fully 
maritime waterbody.

The only alternative would be to consider it the lowest part of the 
Georges River which would be an extreme stretch considering the size of 
the bay and its connection to the sea compared to the discharge of the 
river.

More elaborate discussion of the matter can be found on the wiki:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_Features/Coastline-River_transit_placement

As said a bay is not a separate waterbody in OSM so if you consider 
something a bay you need to decide what it is a bay of.  Tagging 
natural=water + water=bay is always factually wrong (and is also only 
used about 80 times globally).

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