[talk-au] Direction of flow, rivers and streams

[Richard Weait]

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 4:56 PM, Liz <edodd at billiau.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2010, Craig Feuerherdt wrote:
>> In some cases it is pretty difficult to
>> determine which way streams flow as pointed out by Liz and in these
>> instances it may be worth putting a "fixme=direction" tag onto the stream.
>
> If the flow is in either direction, depending on rainfall, fixme is not going
> to work, unless you speak to the Diety of Your Choice.

Is there a term for these bidirectional streams?  I couldn't find
anything on wikipedia.

Are you describing a flood plain from a dry stream (gultch or wadi)?
So it might flood from any direction, but because it is so dry, water
evaporates or is absorbed except in extreme flood conditions when it
might flow?  Surely in this case it would only flow downhill?

I can imagine a system that looks like a dinner plate and can be
flooded from any side, but does flow really describe what is happening
there?  Perhaps this is a dry lake?

If these can be classified some way it sounds like we should have a
distinct tag for them  waterway=stream; oneway=no doesn't seem
sufficient.