[Tagging] Seasonal, intermittent, and ephemeral water tags

[Tod Fitch]

> On May 18, 2018, at 7:33 PM, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I seek comments and thoughts on
> 
> -------------
> 
> Seasonal:
> 
> The seasonal tag in well established. I don't think there is much confusion with it.
> 
> 
> ---------------
> 
> Intermittent:
> 
> The intermittent tag continues to be confused with seasonal.
> 
> Possibly this is because some want to use it to indicate that a follow is both seasonal and intermittent?
> 
> 
> -------------
> 
> Ephemeral:
> 
> There is also ephemeral being used with stream=ephemeral. This cannot be used with other water features e.g. lakes.
> 
> I think the tag ephemeral=yes could be used, other ideas for tagging are flow=ephemeral, water=ephemeral ...
> 
> 
> -------------------
> 
> Combinations with seasonal?
> 
> Think I have raised this before but not come to any firm conclusion myself.
> 
> I think that tagging
> 
> seasonal=summer
> 
> intermittent= yes
> 
> 
> leads to confusion. Is the summer flow intermittent? Or is ther regular summer flow with intermittent flow at other times of year?
> 
> It may be better to tag
> 
> seasonal:intermittent=summer
> 
> 
> or
> 
> seasonal=summer
> 
> seasonal:intermittent=winter;autumn;spring
> 

In the semi-arid areas I’ve lived in there are “waterways” that, if they carry water, only have water in them during the rainy season. But, they may not carry water throughout the rainy season. Or even carry water at all every rainy season. So I can see some merit to indicating the seasonality of intermittent water flow.

If I recall correctly, there was some discussion a while back about using ephemeral as either a key or as a value to the intermittent key to cover the case where even during a rainy season it would be rare to encounter water and if you did the water was likely to be present for only a few hours. But looking at the wiki and taginfo I don’t see it being used as a value for intermittent. There are only 82 instances of it being used as a key all with the value “yes". And I don’t recall the final “bike shedded” result of the mail list discussion. Apparently it did not take hold. I personally thing “ephemeral” should be a accepted value for the intermittent tag but apparently I am alone in that opinion.

In any case, your “seasonal:intermittent=summer” tag could also be confusing. Does that mean that the only time you are likely to encounter water is in summer but it is only intermittent then? Or does it mean that there is likely to be water in it during fall, winter and spring but it becomes intermittent in summer? Basically has the same issue as the current tagging you are noting as being confusing.

In reading the current wiki, I think the tagging should be a logical and operation. If there is a seasonal tag, it indicates the season water may be present. Then if there is a intermittent tag it indicates that even during the season water is present it is intermittent.