[Tagging] River crossing grade

Tod Fitch tod at fitchfamily.org
Thu Jan 27 17:17:38 UTC 2022


In the semi-arid area that I live and do a lot of hiking we don’t have many year round streams. Most are either seasonal or have ephemeral flows.

Focusing on the trails that cross the few year round streams, every single water crossing on them changes fairly often either due to changes in flow or attempts by various hikers to create a way to get across without getting their feet wet. For any give crossing, if it has been more than a few days since you last visited, you will not know what you will find. You may find some branch has been dropped into the water that you can balance on, a couple of weeks later that has washed away but someone had thrown in some large stones you can use, another time you find the flow channel has changed and you can leap across, and the next time all that is washed away and you are reduced to wading.

My point being that flowing water and hikers are both dynamic and if you are getting to the point where you are trying to tie it down to “stepping stone”, “fallen log”, “step over”, etc. then in my area you are doomed to remap the crossing every couple of weeks and a person using a map or app that doesn’t update every day is likely to find a different situation on the ground than OSM has told them. From a practical point of view for mapping in my area there is really only a few values I might be able use that are stable:

“You area almost certainly going get your feet wet”
“There is a pretty good chance you will get your feet wet”
“You are very likely going to be able to keep your feet dry”

But if you insist in going into the weeds with a multiple values that are temporally dependent, you should also consider places where there are prefabricated bridges that are stowed during the off (rainy season) and then assembled during the dry summer hiking months (I have seen several of these in the redwood forests of northern California). Are they fords, yes for about 1/2 the year. The other half there is a bridge there.

And then there are stream crossings in the higher mountains that are trivially crossed on skis in winter or by wading in summer and autumn but if you attempt them at all during spring melt you are basically committing suicide.

Sorry for being a curmudgeon here, but it seems to me that trying to get more detailed than a general “there be a water crossing here without boat or bridge” (i.e. ford=yes) is doomed to failure.

Cheers!


> On Jan 27, 2022, at 8:11 AM, Zeke Farwell <ezekielf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Several definitions of the English word "ford":
> https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ford <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ford>
> https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ford <https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ford>
> https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ford <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/ford>
> 
> Several mention "wading".  One mentions "not using a boat".  None mention stepping over, jumping over, stepping stones, or dry streambeds.  Yes OSM tags do diverge from English word meanings, but if we can avoid it wouldn't that be preferable?  ford=stepping_stones has around 8000 uses and thankfully ford=boat has only around 50.  Doesn't seem too late to change these.
> https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/ford#values <https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/ford#values>
> 
> My suggestion would be to introduce a new tag water_crossing=yes for a generic water crossing.  This could be used for any water crossing where the mapper does not know if it is a ford, a usually dry streambed, small enough to step across on stones, or some other kind of crossing.  This key could then have more specific values to add more detail:
> 
> water_crossing=ford
> water_crossing=stepping_stones
> water_crossing=step_over
> water_crossing=dry
> water_crossing=boat
> 
> Since ford=yes has been (mis)used so heavily to mean any generic water crossing, we can say that ford=yes has the same meaning as water_crossing=yes.  Perhaps even with this more detailed scheme there is still some desire to tag how wet you would get at a water_crossing=ford, but it would be limited to crossings where you are going to get wet.
> 
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 10:42 AM Sinus Pi <sinus+osmtag at sinpi.net <mailto:sinus%2Bosmtag at sinpi.net>> wrote:
> > Stepping stones are not a bridge
> 
> So when does a structure built to facilitate dry-foot crossing become a bridge? I'm sure you'll agree that a plank thrown over a stream is a bridge. A handful of sticks and logs thrown into the stream, like a beaver dam, surely comprises a makeshift bridge, does it not?
> 
> On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 at 16:29, Philip Barnes <phil at trigpoint.me.uk <mailto:phil at trigpoint.me.uk>> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thursday, 27 January 2022, Sinus Pi wrote:
> > How about a different approach to the stepping stones...
> >
> > What do you call a (usually, but not always) man-made structure that allows
> > you to cross a waterway dry-footed? A bridge.
> > Is a plank thrown over a stream a bridge? Likely.
> > Is a log fallen over the river, now commonly used as a crossing, a bridge?
> > Kind of.
> > Is a stone chucked into the river a bridge? Well... why not?
> >
> > Hence: why not bridge=stepping_stones?
> > And leave ford=* for where the waterway cannot (usually) be crossed without
> > getting your feet wet?
> 
> Stepping stones are not a bridge, any more than they are a ford, although that has been in use a long time.
> 
> Why not highway=stepping stones, in the same way we have highway=steps.
> 
> Both can only exist on a foot only way.
> 
> In the case of stepping stones, they are often alongside an actual ford for example https://www.geograph.org/photo/14321 <https://www.geograph.org/photo/14321>
> 
> Phil (trigpoint)
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 at 14:43, Peter Elderson <pelderson at gmail.com <mailto:pelderson at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > > I don't see much added value in this proposal.
> > > Boat is not applicable (not a ford), use ferry for that: established
> > > tagging.
> > > Swimming, not a ford.
> > > Stepping stones, I think then it's still a ford; established tagging.
> > > Add depth, width as needed. An estimate will suffice. Dry=0 cm, soles=5
> > > cm, ankle=10 cm, knee=0,5 m, wade=1 m.
> > > Intermittent, tidal: there is tagging for that.
> > > Construction key could help if you want to tag an artificial ford.
> > >
> > > Peter Elderson
> > >
> > >
> > > Op wo 26 jan. 2022 om 11:59 schreef Andrew Harvey <
> > > andrew.harvey4 at gmail.com <mailto:andrew.harvey4 at gmail.com>>:
> > >
> > >> I couldn't see anything on the wiki about river crossings grade so I
> > >> started drafting a proposal
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Pedestrian_river_crossing <https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Pedestrian_river_crossing>
> > >>
> > >> Feedback or comments or help on it is most welcome.
> > >>
> > >> # Rational
> > >>
> > >> Particularly on hiking trails, the intersection of a highway=footway or
> > >> highway=path and a waterway=* can be defined as either:
> > >>
> > >> - A bridge bridge=yes which allows you to walk over the watercourse.
> > >> - A culvert tunnel=culvert which takes the water through a tunnel
> > >> underneath the walking path.
> > >> - Stepping stones ford=stepping_stones which allow you to walk through
> > >> the watercourse without usually getting wet (unless the water level is
> > >> higher than the stepping stones, this tag doesn't imply you'll always be
> > >> able to get across)
> > >> - A generic stream/river crossing ford=yes where your path passes through
> > >> the watercourse.
> > >> In the last case of ford=yes it can be helpful to describe the usual
> > >> condition of that stream/river crossing to help give consumers an idea of
> > >> what they can generally expect.
> > >>
> > >> Mindful that conditions can change depending on upstream rainfall, or it
> > >> could vary seasonally, but for places where it's usually consistent, this
> > >> proposal proposes tagging it.
> > >>
> > >> # Proposed Tagging
> > >>
> > >> 0. creek/stream crossing where generally the creekbed is dry and you
> > >> won't get wet.
> > >> 1: creek/stream crossing where generally the water level is so low that
> > >> you won't have water ingress in your shoes
> > >> 2: creek/stream crossing where your body will stay dry but you'll want to
> > >> take your shoes off if you prefer to keep them dry
> > >> 3: river crossing where your body will get wet, may have a rope to help
> > >> you cross, but you can wade through the water and won't usually need to swim
> > >> 4: river crossing where you'll need to swim across
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> Tagging mailing list
> > >> Tagging at openstreetmap.org <mailto:Tagging at openstreetmap.org>
> > >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging>
> > >>
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Tagging mailing list
> > > Tagging at openstreetmap.org <mailto:Tagging at openstreetmap.org>
> > > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging>
> > >
> >
> 
> --
> Sent from my Sailfish device
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