[Tagging] Feature Proposal - RFC - landuse bush

[stevea]

On Feb 13, 2021, at 4:28 PM, Bert -Araali- Van Opstal <bert.araali.afritastic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Graeme,

Thank you Bert, for answering Graeme, I was mentally composing something similar.  I offer perspective for your consideration.

> Nature Reserves can be better mapped as boundary = protected_area with a protection class

I fully agree.  And/or leisure=nature_reserve, if it is one of those (as our wiki documents).  You might also consider not using a protection_class key-value pair (tag), leaving "boundary=protected_area" the actual tag there.  Whether this renders or not (it does with some values of protect_class), that "unadorned" (by protect_class) key-value pair "says what you mean to say:" that this is the boundary of a protected area.  (I might abbreviate b=p_a as the tag to use "to start with" as it certainly is accurate and not saying anything new).  In fact, protect_class even says it is undefined when it has no value, as it would in the case of it simply being excluded, because it isn't fully known what value, if any, protect_class should or might be assigned.  Some places, at least between today and when we might more fully tag them in the future, benefit by a whisper of a brief, sparse tag (like simply b=p_a).

Full disclosure, doing this is part of a proposal I co-author to hopefully better tag "parks as protected areas," (to start with).  I don't wish to hijack the thread, but there is overlap with talking about scrub.  The puzzle pieces to do this continue to fall into place, a bigger one is the gentle concept that sometimes, the local concept and understanding of "park" and the boundary of a protected area simply conflate / intersect into a logical "yes, that is true here."  It is likely these number into the millions on Earth.  We are well poised to absorb this knowledge, in fact we are well on our way.  Note:  these are boundaries of land USE, not land COVER.  A boundary says "we use this land up to here in certain ways" legally or environmentally, all kinds of ways, irrespective of what natural features (rocks, marsh...) are on them.  So, boundary and land use have SOME overlap, but land use and land cover do not.

> In this case would much better fit the use and purpose. You can additionally add the key "managed" (not "maintained", it is "managed"), even define an addtional value for it to provide more detail. PArts of it seem to have grown to become trees, if you like to provide more detail these can be mapped as separate areas with natural=wood.

Yes, managed and maintained remain blurry compared to one another.  "The hand of humans" in nature can be said by many to be heavy and noticeable, creating land use and land cover patterns which are rich and storied, this tapestry continues to unfold upon Earth as long as we are here.  Brian's suggestions about "managed" do lead in a better direction.

Please be cautious issuing to others proclamations about "what to do if you like" about natural=wood, forestry, landcover in general and several other related topics.  These issues are complex and many are in serious discussions right now by many of us, who I believe share long term interest in clear, sane tagging ahead regarding these.  Clarity emerges, especially as land use and land cover continue to be better understood as separate issues.  Please, especially now, take a global, even a go-slow-because-I-have-looked-around-widely approach.  There is no hurry.  In fact, we build important bridges of understanding with such "widerness."  I see it a lot right now.

> The second example (https://goo.gl/maps/hj7UpiqKWYGXamHA7) is a perfect match with an example given in the proposal (see https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Example_4_landuse_bush.png).  True not linear features so NOT barrier=hedge.

Wait, I think a hedge IS a linear feature.  Isn't it?  I always apply it to ways (unclosed ways), never nodes.  4 does look as if it is a barrier, to block pedestrians from automobile traffic engaging in parking, also acting as a buffer of many sorts.

4 looks like part of a landuse=commercial area which has land cover of natural=scrub (but while it is living matter, it isn't natural, in a sense, it is planted by humans).  This is "contrived" (deliberately planted) scrub; it has a "corporate-horticulturally-architected-for-shopping-centers" bent, something like man_made (I am OK with human_made).  It isn't leisure=garden (as the proposal wiki says), but it is deliberately planted in a way that truly natural scrub which I tag natural=scrub (and just did on mountains in San Diego) are not deliberately planted, they "grow wild."  I use, I think appropriately, natural=* when vegetation "grows wild" and not agriculture, golf course, landscaping, garden, zoo, even "automobile-oriented shopping center approved horticultural shrubbery, species 15 and 22."  (Well, I like genus-species nomenclature in good old Latin like it's done, not numbers, that would be corporate landscape architects).  So this is a rather specific sort of scrub, deliberately human planted.  Let's tag that (somehow?)  I shrug my shoulders.

"Bush," I simply do not like in our map.  I hold my nose as I say this:  some hear it as a kind of vulgar slang and I wish to say no more about that.  Call it a four-letter word and be done with it, please.  We can develop better nomenclature.  Some aspect of how snippy with specific tools we are at parking lot shrubbery makes me shrug my shoulders a bit but I'm not a data consumer from the future, so, what do I know?

I don't really consider shrubs a "landuse" besides what there already should be here for that:  commercial or retail because it is a shopping center.  Again, the author seems to be saying that a specific landcover (contrived, planted, corporate, kind of ugly, but hey, part of our reality) is a "land use."  Whatever these "shrubs" are, I don't believe they belong in the key landuse.  Their landuse is as part of a commercial shopping center, ostensibly to screen a sidewalk and pedestrian activity from its active use as a parking lot.  I've also seen these harbor rats and other urban nocturnal (often foraging) animals, depends on density, cleanliness, nearby restaurants and/or dumpsters, many factors.

If these had to be tagged as a specific set of "often urban" land cover, that could be re-developed with portions of this, sure.

Maybe an exploration of landcover / landuse issues as extant is in order.

I might be late to be saying that.  Though, this proposal was drafted a mere ten days ago.  And while I subscribe to talk-au and tagging and others, I can't read everything and be everywhere.  I do try to keep track of who is who or whom I'm addressing, as I necessarily jump around, thank you for bearing with me as I change that a bit here.

Lengthy, though you did ask!
SteveA
California