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

Paul Allen pla16021 at gmail.com
Mon Jan 21 12:43:29 UTC 2019


On Mon, 21 Jan 2019 at 04:20, Andy Townsend <ajt1047 at gmail.com> wrote:

One suggestion that I've made here before is explicitly to use
> "landuse=forestry" for areas that may or may not have trees on them, if
> the areas with trees within have been mapped separately
>

You're not the only one to have made that suggestion.  It makes a lot of
sense, since
the original intent for landuse=forest was for forestry and the natural
language/OSM
mismatch is one reason the tag is often used for a different purpose than
intended.

I've mapped several areas of trees where the OS_OpenData_StreetView layer
shows a
different extent than is visible in aerial imagery. - sometimes a lesser
extent, sometimes
a greater extent.  And in some of those cases where the OS layer is larger
than visible
in aerial imagery, the aerial imagery shows a fence matching up with the OS
layer AND
what appears to be tree stumps or scrub or young trees or whatever where
the two views
disagree.  If I map the visible extent of the trees, years from now
somebody will have to
change the outline to match new growth.  If I include tree stumps then
somebody might
change the outline the next day to match what is visible.  Having
landuse=forestry that
really does mean forestry (as opposed to landuse=forest that was intended
to mean forestry
but rarely does) would deal with some of the issues.  It would be up to the
mapper to decide
whether it's worth the hassle of using landcover=trees to show the current
extent of trees.

[...]

> That renderer also processes landuse=forest the same way - see
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/44018882 and
>
> https://map.atownsend.org.uk/maps/map/map.html#zoom=15&lat=53.21319&lon=-1.18217
> for an example of that.
>

And there's the rub.  The standard carto ignores landuse=forestry.  Which
means that people
end up tagging for the renderer by using landuse=forest or natural=wood.
Because woodland
is tedious to map and there's no point going to all that effort if it's not
going to render.  It's
unrealistic to expect most mappers to use landuse=forestry unless it
renders.

Around and around we go.  This list cannot agree on approving
landuse=forestry because it
doesn't get rendered.  The carto people refuse to render landuse=forestry
because nobody
uses it.  Sometimes the semi-anarchic nature of OSM tagging can be very
frustrating.  There
are days when I yearn for joined-up thinking.

How about...  I expect it will get shouted down for many reasons, but...

What if we suggest in the wiki that where trees are used for actual
forestry people are
encouraged to dual-tag with landuse=forestry + natural=wood on the basis
that with
enough usage the carto group will render landuse=forestry AND that when
they do there
will be an effort to remove natural=wood when it appears in combination with
landuse=forestry.  What was I thinking?  That might actually get us
somewhere, and we
wouldn't want to do that.

-- 
Paul
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