[Talk-GB] Mapping of Kielder Forest(s)

Wed Sep 1 19:34:04 UTC 2021

I don't think it's a good idea to sweep away existing detail in the name of
future maintenance. I imagine gaps usually will be maintained and this
could be used to support different tree types - they claim to plan more
mixed planting and less clear-felling over time. I have used
man_made=cutline, and it can be of use for straight firebreaks and avoiding
multipolygons but once the detail is there I think it's better kept. I'm
not sure fiddling with cutlines will be much easier than fiddling with two
edges.

Andy, thanks for the suggestion of landuse=forestry for the bigger area.
I'm convinced but I imagine until carto, osmand, etc can at least render
the name Russ isn't going to want to use this, and using landuse=forest
will blot out all of the gaps and cause confusion I guess. Perhaps a
halfway house would be landuse=forest and introduce cutlines between the
gaps... Render the name and the cutlines and be ready to switch to
landuse=forestry if/when the time comes, but it's more work and objects.

Regarding the whole of 'Kielder Forest' - it seems like you're talking
about the wider managed area currently known as 'Kielder Water & Forest
Park' on the forestry commission website? Does anyone know of any plans for
mapping the Scottish Forest Parks, or the 'National Forest' in midlands
which might guide us? These are often relatively treeless areas. Could the
Kielder one be some kind of protected area? Or a new tag like
leisure=outdoor_recreation, or even leisure=resort given they advertise
lodges https://www.visitkielder.com/stay/lodges

If someone is remapping and using OS OpenData, they have labels The Border
[or Borders] Forest Park and we have areas named that way too. I *think*
that's a former name for what they are now calling Kielder Water & Forest
Park so probably shouldn't be applied (but it would be good if someone
knew).

Cheers

Tom

On Tue, 31 Aug 2021 at 09:23, Nick <nick at foresters.org> wrote:

> Hi Russ
>
> Looking at the example you provided, it seems to me that the use of
> smaller blocks may have been selected as representing compartments or
> sub-compartments. In which case the tag boundary=forest_compartment and
> ref:= or similar might have been helpful as a management tool but also
> for the public to be able to refer to (e.g. reporting any concerns or
> sightings).
>
> Cheers
>
> Nick
>
>
> On 30/08/2021 19:59, Russ Garrett via Talk-GB wrote:
> > Hi James,
> >
> > First off I would like to emphasise that I am not suggesting the
> > removal of any detail here.
> >
> > I am suggesting that small gaps in the forest should not be
> > represented by gaps in the forest polygons, but should be replaced
> > with man_made=cutline (and/or a highway tag), which would reduce the
> > number of individual landuse polygons. Larger gaps (such as the old
> > farmsteads, etc) should certainly be preserved, potentially as holes
> > in a multipolygon.
> >
> > On Sun, 29 Aug 2021 at 19:53, James Derrick <lists at jamesderrick.org>
> wrote:
> >> This detail was added to give information to walkers and riders (horse/
> >> pony/ fit mountain bikers) where access may be easier - walking along a
> >> forestry haul road is easy; across the ridges created by a commercial
> >> planting machine is very hard.
> > Ideally in OSM this should be communicated via highway ways - probably
> > by highway=track - and this would allow additional useful info on
> > surface quality to be added. The gaps between landuse polygons are not
> > necessarily indicative of a passable route in OSM (although they are
> > in OS StreetView). I've visited Kielder Forest several times so I
> > appreciate that a lot of these gaps may not be passable by vehicle or
> > even on foot.
> >
> >> I can see that adding a master relation to bring individual stands of
> >> landuse=forest trees together could be useful, however where do you
> >> start and stop?
> >>
> >> The Forestry Commission signage on the ground suggests they manage the
> >> wider landscape with areas / plantations / species collectively known by
> >> several names, not just Kielder.
> >>
> >> Do you have access to this level of hierarchical data (I don't even with
> >> ground survey, beyond specific areas - e.g. Hawkhirst, Bakefin) or are
> >> you suggesting one level of "Kielder"?
> > I was trying to avoid this discussion, which I think is a separate
> > issue, but I will summarise it briefly: Forestry England does
> > designate these as 13 separate forests (all of which are considered
> > part of Kielder Forest), and they have a rather interesting set of
> > plans available on their website:
> >
> > https://www.forestryengland.uk/forest-planning/kielder-forest-plans
> >
> > Unfortunately these plans appear to be encumbered by OS copyright, so
> > we can't use them in OSM. (There is quite a lot of open-licensed
> > Forestry England data, but seemingly not anything with the actual
> > names of the forests.)
> >
> > I'm not suggesting that the entire area should be tagged as "Kielder
> > Forest". To start with, I was planning to roughly group these based on
> > the naming visible on OS StreetView. The way OS names the forests
> > appears to be slightly different from the way that Forestry England
> > names them - Forestry England has names for various sections of forest
> > around Kielder Water which OS just calls "Kielder Forest" - but I
> > think this might align better to how they're interpreted on the ground
> > anyway.
> >
> > At any rate, these areas aren't really named in any sensible way at
> > the moment. My primary intention with this was to try and make sure
> > they are. This can always be tweaked later.
> >
> >> My general approach is to map from imagery, but do recognise from my own
> >> walks on the ground that areas may be clear felled and appear barren.
> >> These typically are replanted relatively quickly (in the 10-20 year
> >> lifetime of a softwood tree) and rarely change use (e.g. continued
> >> forest, not meadow) due to the physical geography (terrain, altitude,
> >> thin rocky soils).
> >>
> >> By breaking the overall forest into individual stands of landuse=forest,
> >> it seems relatively simple to change the status of one area as it
> changes.
> > I don't think it's particularly realistic to try and keep up with the
> > state of each individual part of the forest. If this was the case then
> > it could potentially be worth keeping it mapped at a more granular
> > scale, but I think this is a losing battle. From what I've seen so
> > far, a lot of what is mapped in OSM is already out of date compared to
> > the newest Bing imagery.
> >
> > Personally think that it's fine to keep even a recently-felled area
> > tagged as "forest". It will be re-planted soon enough, and may even
> > already have been if you're operating off aerial imagery.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > --
> > Russ Garrett
> > russ at garrett.co.uk
> >
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> >
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