[Tagging] Seasonal, intermittent, and ephemeral water tags

Vao Matua vaomatua at gmail.com
Sun May 20 02:07:43 UTC 2018


For remote mappers seasonal can be ambiguous, the only thing that is known
is that a channel or lake didn't have water when the image was taken.
In the tropics the notion of summer doesn't make sense, it's a foreign
concept.
intermittent=yes is a fine tag

On Sat, May 19, 2018 at 3:29 PM, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 19/05/18 13:25, Tod Fitch wrote:
>
> 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.
>>
>> Ok.
>
> I think I have some 3 reasonable things to move forward with.
>
> Intermittent clarification:
>
> Clarify the meaning of intermittent on the OSM wiki! At the moment it says
> "used to indicate that a body of water does not permanently contain water."
> That is too easily confused with seasonal! I think it should say "used to
> indicate that a body of water only has water irregularly." Where should
> this be 'discussed'?
>
> Intermittent - add values:
> Add seasonal values to intermittent e.g. intermittent=summer to indicate
> that water might be present irregularly, but only during summer. RFC etc?
>
> Add ephemeral:
> Add the ephemeral tag with the same extended values as intermittent above.
> RFC etc ?
>
>
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>
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