[Tagging] Forest parcel with other landcover (scrub, scree…): how to map?

[Kevin Kenny]

On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 1:33 PM David Marchal <penegal at live.fr> wrote:
> All is in the title: when hiking in a forest (I mean, an area considered as a forest by authorities), I often encounter other landcovers, like scrubs in recently teared down parcels, or scree in the mountains. These area, although, clearly and morphologically, not a forest, are still mapped as such, as they are considered to be part of the forest and are treated this may, but they are morphologically not the forest: the forest is the area administratively regarded as such, but it is not always the case; if I want, for instance, to map them as a scrub area of the forest, as the polygons overlapped, they are rendered in a mixed way. Is there a recommended way of handling such cases without broking display? If so, what are they? The landcover tag? boundary=forest_compartment? Another?

This again.

There's a failed consensus here - and you risk reversion with either decision.

I tend to follow the principle that landuse=* denotes the land USE,
not the land COVER, so I don't demand that every square metre of
landuse=forest be covered by trees. But many do, and the renderer
follows their inclination.

natural=wood is a possibility to show tree cover - but that leads some
to argue that it has to be a 'natural' wood - whatever that means.
I've heard it argued that the 'old second growth' forest that's
increasingly common near me is still not 'natural' because a skilled
forester can still find the human impact. (Of course, that was true
even before the Europeans arrived - there was considerable
pre-Columbian human impact on these forests.)

landcover=trees doesn't render, but is at least unambiguous that it
means tree cover and nothing else.

landuse=forestry, for a managed forest, has been proposed but received
a lukewarm reception.

For the state forests and wildlife management areas around here, I tag
at least boundary=protected_area. (Tag with the right protect_class,
and add leisure=nature_reserve if it fits: 'nature reserve' covers a
lot of things.) If I'm mapping land cover (I seldom do), I will use
natural=wood to mean 'tree cover' and let others fight over it.

But that's just what I do, and I do not argue that it is right. With
the current state of the discussion, which has been in stalemate for a
few years, there simply is no correct tagging, and what I do appears
'least wrong' to me.