[Tagging] landuse=clearing

[Andy Townsend]

What I've tended to do with clearings is:

o natural=wood for "here be trees", with leaf_type added.

o If there's a large "landuse=forest" area already and that encompasses 
wood, clearings, ponds etc. (and there often is), leave that as 
"landuse=forest" or add as "landuse=forestry" (note - that tag is in 
very little use)

o Add some kind of note for clearings, especially where trees have gone 
but are present on some imagery, and also some kind of note on tree 
areas that are newly planted and won't look like trees on imagery.

This is all far from perfect, especially given all the other problems of 
mapping in trees (not all bits of woods accessible, imagery out of date, 
GPS traces miles off because of the trees, etc.).

I wouldn't personally remove "invalid" landuse tags* unless I had a 
pretty good idea of what to replace them with (usually I'd need to have 
been there), and I'd certainly be wary of removing information that 
might be useful to future mappers, even if that information is only 
"this was mapped by an inexperienced HOT mapper using very odd tags a 
long time ago".

Best Regards,

Andy

* genuine typos an obvious exception of course