[Tagging] The saga of landuse=reservoir vs water=reservoir

[Joseph Eisenberg]

Re: "natural=water' wins.  I can see that there's water there"

You still have to distinguish marine water (outside of the
natural=coastline) from inland waters, and distinguishing rivers from lakes
is very important for proper rendering of many maps.

Also, many areas of natural=water actually don't have any water for much of
the year, if they are also intermittent=yes - such as seasonal lakes in
semi-arid areas.

I personally am not as concerned about water=reservoir for artificial
lakes, but I am concerned that water=river is often forgotten when mapping
areas of river water, where previously waterway=riverbank was clearly
distinguished from lakes.

Many map styles distinguish rivers and streams from lakes, since it is
often helpful to use a darker color for narrow linear features.

-- Joseph Eisenberg

On Wed, Dec 16, 2020 at 8:40 AM Kevin Kenny <kevin.b.kenny at gmail.com> wrote:

> My take on it:
>
> Wearing my data consumer's hat:
>
> For most purposes, I care about "this ground is covered with water".
> 'natural=water' is the main thing to look for, but I also have to look for
> 'landuse=reservoir' and several other things that I can't be bothered to
> look up at the moment. I have to look for all those things, so I don't
> really care all that much which one is in use.
>
> The chief problem with both of these tags is that even for the rough-level
> mapping, I have to examine 'water=*' or 'reservior_type=*' to find that the
> contained substance is, in fact, water and not sewage or mine tailings.
>
> In any case, both uses are widespread.  I'm going to need to interpret
> both for the foreseeable future.  I can cope with synonyms.  I'm not going
> to lobby strongly for one or the other.
>
> Wearing my mapper's hat:
>
> 'natural=water' wins.  I can see that there's water there. The big
> counterargument that I've heard, other than that 'landuse=reservoir' has
> been the predominant tagging, is that a reservoir isn't "natural" water.
> But in our complex, human- (and beaver-) sculpted environment, what is
> natural?  Many of the reservoirs that I've encountered have natural lakes
> and ponds underneath, and simply have had their water raised. It seems to
> me that by the thinking of those who think that 'natural' means "totally
> untouched by humans", that I'd actually be required to do the research
> about where the old shoreline lay before humans raised the water, and
> divide the reservoir into an inner 'natural=water' and an outer
> 'landuse=reservoir' - which is an example of the tagging position that I
> abhor.  I shouldn't have to do historical research in order to map
> something that I can directly observe with my own eyes. In fact, with some
> of the ponds I've mapped, I've not troubled (or been able to) access the
> outlet to find out what controls the water level. I don't know whether they
> are tarns, dolines, beaver ponds, or man-made ponds created for logging
> until I can find out where the water goes when it leaves.  (I hike in
> glaciated karst; the landforms are complex.) But I can see at a  glance,
> "there's water here," whether glaciers, limestone, beavers or humans put it
> there. That should be enough to map it.
>
> If someone else feels strongly enough about it to change something that
> I've mapped as 'natural=water' to 'landuse=reservoir', well, I know that I
> have to accept that as a synonym. so it's not going to harm me as a data
> consumer.  I'm not going to change it back.  But I'm not going to accept
> that the original tagging was "incorrect" or "deprecated".  I mapped what I
> saw. You can go there and see it too.
>
> To continue the classification of waterbodies, this argument to me is a
> tempest in a teapot.
> --
> 73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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