[Tagging] RFC - landcover clearing

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

what about natural=clearing? I don’t see “clearing” as a landcover value that suits. Landcover is about what is there physically, “clearing” is about the absence of what was there before.

Cheers,
Martin



sent from a phone

> On 6. Aug 2018, at 02:11, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> I have been looking at the values used with the landuse key to try and stop land covers becoming regarded as a legitimate use of the key landuse. 
> 
> 
> One strange value I came across was 'clearing'. No OSM wiki document. 
> 
> I resolved this to mean a change in land cover usually from trees to a 'clear' area. 
> 
> Most of these look to be from HOT mapping. 
> 
> 
> Other instances of the value 'clearing' are natural=clearing and wood=clearing.
> 
> So I am thinking that these would best combined into the one tag  landcover=clearing
> 
> A proposal page is ready for comments - link - https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Landcover%3Dclearing
> 
> The basics are : 
> 
> Definition: An area where surrounding larger vegetation, such as trees,       are not present. This provides more light than the surrounding area. It may have lower vegetation growing, or it may be an outcrop of rock. 
> 
> Rationale:
> Defines use of already existing value and suggest better ways of mapping these features. It is meant to encourage better mapping and suggest that this tag is a last resort.     
> 
> Key
> The key landcover is use as the 'best fit' as it marks the lack of a surrounding land cover, so it is directly related to a land cover. 
> The area could all ready have a land use - part of a forestry area for example. The area could have been made by man or nature so neither of the keys natural or man_made would suit all situations.     
> 
> How to map
> The section on 'how to map' gives 4 options of how to map a clearing; map what is there, map what is surrounding, map both what is there and surrounding or map with landcover=clearing. 
> Asking a mapper not to map this feature is not a good idea, mappers should be encouraged to map not discouraged. If a mapper has found this tag page then it is best to document better ways to tag the feature with this tag being the lest desirable result that maps the information rather than not mapping the information. 
> The listed order is a compromise. The better mapping ones come before landcover=clearing to discourage it use. The simplest option first - map what is there - as that is the easiest option. If they cannot determine what is there then the next option - map the surrounds. Then the combination of the first two. Then finally the last option and least desirable. Hopefully this causes some though on what they are mapping, rather than just using the tag. 
> 
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