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

[Warin]

On 21/01/19 05:52, Kevin Kenny wrote:

> 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.

And it will continue to occur!

And reoccur, again and 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.

+1

>   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.)

Those who argue this have no problem abusing the landuse tag, so I see no reason why the tag 'natural' cannot be similarly abused.
The OSMwiki for 'natural' even states that is can be used for human effected things.

>
> 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 forestry area I tag landuse=forest with produce=trees (or what ever is produced by the area for human use). This makes it clare that the area is for productive human use.

>
> 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.

I too use natural=wood with landcover=trees to map a tree area.

--------------------------
The end to this madness is for renders to recognise that the landuse=forest needs to be rendered differently from natural=wood.
The essential difference between the two is that landuse must have some human benefit, a produce, and a clear way of doing that is to add the rendering of a axe to the tree.