[Tagging] dry swamps

[Matija Nalis]

On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 21:07:22 +1100, Warin <61sundowner at gmail.com> wrote:
> The ‘dry swamp’ has no apparent way to tag it. These will not be found 
> in Europe, just as you don’t find deserts there.
>
> They have occasional water, not seasonal, not yearly but, say, between 5 
> to 20 years they have water. As such they do not satisfy the OSM swamp 
> definitions at all.

I see few options. If it happens more regularly, map as:

- If it happens more regularly, map as: natural=wetland + intermittent=yes
  there even exist few cases of "wetland=dry", so you may add that (or something similar) too.
  
  Yes, I know that "natural=wetland" tag talks about "seasonal", but note the "intermittent=yes" changes the meaning of
  the main tag significantly. There are even things which are normally (without intermittent tag) ALWAYS full of water
  (like rivers and lakes), but intermittent=yes changes what they are:
  
  https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:intermittent
  
- if they very rarely (if ever) become waterlogged, mark them whatever they are currently (or most of the time).

  After all, you wouldn't mark say Fukushima as wetland, because due to its location and climate it is prone
  to tsunami and flood disasters.
  
  So, if there are trees, mark as natural=forest. If grass, landcover=grass. If no vegetation then natural=desert. etc.
  Add human readable description=* mentioning the rare floods when it becomes swamp.
  
- see what other similar features in the region use, and copy/paste that.
  Even if it is slightly wrong (or with time better solution becomes available), 
  someone writing a bot to autocorrect will need to fix those other features too
  so will fix yours too.



-- 
Opinions above are GNU-copylefted.