[talk-au] Deserts, mapping and sources

[Andrew Davidson]

On 17/01/18 10:49, Warin wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> OSMand has started rendering deserts.
> 
> I note that only the Simpson Desert in OSM so far is Way: Simpson Desert 
> (168949121) ... I cannot find the source for this.
> 
> It would be nice to map the other deserts that we have too.

I'm not sure that there is much point in mapping deserts. Someone has 
already helpfully outlined why:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Tag:natural%3Ddesert

Deserts are a climatic concept:

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/map/climate_classifications/images/kpngrp.png

What you should map is what you can see on the ground. So the Simpson 
Desert should be natural=sand, which is what you can see in the aerial 
imagery.