[Talk-GB] Swales

Mark Goodge mark at good-stuff.co.uk
Fri Sep 24 09:07:53 UTC 2021



On 24/09/2021 09:36, Andy Robinson wrote:
> How are folks mapping Swales?, that is manmade sustainable drainage 
> channels that you typically find on new developments to enable water 
> runoff to drain into the ground but usually with an overflow pipe system 
> to enable water to go safely elsewhere in times of very heavy rain. A 
> local housing estate in our village has a plethora of them and I had 
> originally tagged them as natural=water, water=swale though in reality 
> when they were first dug they had no water in them most of the time. 
> Having walked around them yesterday I realise that have all be 
> planted/colonised as reed beds so they might arguably be closer to a 
> natural=wetland and wetland=reedbed, and I have changed tags to suite. 
> However there are of course man made scrapes in the ground rather than 
> natural and the tagging doesn’t reflect that they are swales, though 
> I’ve added note=swale for now.

That's a good question. I think that, on the whole, they should be 
tagged as they appear (ie, what's on the ground). Depending on their 
nature and the location, some of them will, therefore, be ponds (ie, a 
visible expanse of water), while others will be better tagged as wetland.

if they're normally dry most of the time, though, then I think that 
water=basin and either basin=infiltration or basin=detention (depending 
on design) would be good additional tags. The examples on the wiki for 
these match what most of us would call swales.

Mark



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