[Tagging] Rio de la Plata edit war

[Alan Mackie]

On Sat, 1 Aug 2020 at 07:21, Paul Norman via Tagging <
tagging at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

> On 2020-07-31 8:21 a.m., Andy Townsend wrote:
>
> On 26/05/2020 00:20, Alan Mackie wrote:
>
> Has this edit war stabilised?
>
> Apparently it has been blocking coastline updates across the whole world
> for *months *now.
>
> https://osmdata.openstreetmap.de/data/land-polygons.html
> https://github.com/fossgis/osmdata/issues/7
>
> (picking this thread up again because there still hasn't exactly been a
> meeting of minds here)
>
> land polygons have been generated (see
> https://osmdata.openstreetmap.de/data/land-polygons.html ) and
> https://github.com/fossgis/osmdata/issues/7 has been resolved by manually
> "releasing" the coastline.  The current situation in OSM is
> https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/WD8 - at the time of writing this the
> coastline crosses the river north of Buenos Aires.
>
> However, edits are continuing (see
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/88787419 ).  I'm not convinced
> that moving to one of two extremes, even a small amount at a time, is a
> good idea until there's actually been discussion between the proponents of
> the various positions.
>
> For what it's worth, neither extreme position looks the best answer to me
> - looking at the salinity change between river to ocean at
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0307904X07000716 (see
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0307904X07000716 for
> the key picture) and looking at
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Rio_de_la_Plata_BA_2.JPG suggests a
> location some way between the two.  Despite the NASA photo it looks like
> there isn't a "step change" in salinity - and of course values will
> fluctuate based on winds and tides etc
>
>
> I live near the coast and have done coastline processing, including a
> great deal worldwide during the redaction.
>
> Salinity and territorial control have seldom been considerations in where
> the break between water mapped as waterway=riverbank and natural=coastline
> that I have seen. The break is chosen as a convenient place for mappers and
> a common view of where the coast of the ocean is, not based on scientific
> salinity criteria. For territorial control, look at all the inlets along
> the BC or Norwegian coasts.
>
Perhaps I am an overly literal follower of the wiki, but I had always
assumed the coastline should continue inland as far as the tide continues
to be noticeable. Mediterranean mapping might be an issue, but elsewhere I
think this is fairly clear?

If the water is fresh or the waterway still appears to be a river, canal
etc, then it seems reasonable that they should also have those tags as
well. The coastline and riverbank tags aren't fighting for a common key, so
it's not a direct tagging conflict.

As for territorial control, there are archipelagic states with territorial
waters despite large gaps between all their islands. I'm not sure why
inlets or bays pose a problem?
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