[Talk-us] Tagging National Forests

[Elliott Plack]

Charlotte,

I agree that the "tree(s)" definition is a bit broad. That was just meant
as an example of the things that landcover might include. I once spent a
month hiking around Joshua Tree NP, such a cool area!

Following the typical OSM tagging hierachy, in your cases you'd have

landcover=shurb (or trees, sounds like there is some academic disagreement
there).
natural=desert
shrub=joshua_tree;suguaros

There is definitely a ton of ambiguity insofar as I've only spent a short
time thinking about this. I think that a wikitable with lots of examples
would help the community, then we'd get those reference documents into the
popular editor tools that support a wiki link!

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 2:46 PM Charlotte Wolter <techlady at techlady.com>
wrote:

> Elliott,
>
>         But, how do you define a "tree"?
>         As someone who lives in a desert environment, the word "tree" can
> be defined quite differently from the East Coast.
>         Would you call Joshua Trees "trees"? In aerial photography they
> look like widely spaced shrubs. What about suguaros? They're big, and most
> biologists would define them as trees, though they also look like shrubs on
> aerial photography. And, how about our Southern California chaparral or the
> pinyon-juniper all over the Southwest, both of which are smaller than 15
> feet tall? These "trees" cover thousands of square miles in the West.
>         If we use land cover, I think there has to be a lot of guidance
> and examples in order for people to be consistent.
>
> Charlotte
>
>
> At 10:29 AM 5/10/2016, you wrote:
>
> Thanks for the continued discussion. It seems that one of you removed the
> offending landuse that I mentioned in my email yesterday (from an import
> that was not attributed). As a result, the tiles have begun to regen, and
> we can now see the beautiful, detailed forest tracing that someone did
> around the ski slopes. This is an example of why blanketing a few hundred
> thousand square miles is not appropriate. Here is a screenshot:Â
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xgtiodzjvhq1l4/2016-05-10%2013_14_51-OpenStreetMap.png?dl=0
>
> Now, I gave this some more thought, and I do tend to agree with Steve A
> that landuse=forest indicates an area designated by humans for a particular
> use. For instance, landuse=residential is to define an area that is
> residential in nature, landuse=cemetery is a cemetery. Keeping with that
> trend, I think that the semantics of the tag are aligned with a managed
> forest. That said, we need to document this and then move to start using a
> new set of tags for landcover=*, to map areas covered with whatever it is,
> regardless of whether humans put them there or not. landcover=trees,
> landcover=grass, landcover=rocks, etc. These tags could be on
> landuse=forest areas, or alone. I think we should resurrect the landcover
> proposal!
>
>
>
> Next step would be change landuse=forest to landcover=trees where
> appropriate.
>
> That is the only way I think we as a community can hope to resolve this.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Elliott
>
>
> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 7:53 PM Russell Deffner <russdeffner at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Steve and all,
>
> Â
>
> I think you are correct that we’re trying to build consensus, I think
> this is a good time to review the ‘OSM best practices/rule(s) of
> thumb’.  I would counter-argue that a ‘blanket use of
> landuse=forest’ does not meet the ‘verifiable rule/guideline’ [1];
> it’s not something you can easily observe when there is not active timber
> harvesting. Also, we know that not only is National Forest land used for
> timber production, but also mushroom/berry harvesting, hunting, recreation,
> etc., etc. – so we also should not ‘blanket’ national forestt with
> other tags, but try to accurately/verifiably show things. If you look at
> the discussion page for the proposed landcover features [2] it is a good
> representative of many of these ‘natural’ vs. landuse vs. vegetation
> cover, etc. As I have said in previous threads on this topic – please have
> patience with Pike National Forest – Iâ€I’ve been working on this and
> have verified that Pike does not allow timber harvesting except by permit
> in very small designation sub-sections of the forest, which rotate/change
> frequently, so unless we are talking about ‘importing those boundaries’
> then I’m slowly working on tagging ‘forested’/areas with trees as
> natural=wood (i.e. that I believe meets ‘verifiability’ – i.e. you can
> pretty well see forest edge/tree line in imagery).
>
> =Russ
>
> Â
>
> [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability
>
> [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/landcover
>
> Â
>
> From: OSM Volunteer stevea [ mailto:steveaOSM at softworkers.com
> <steveaOSM at softworkers.com>]
>
> Sent: Monday, May 09, 2016 3:29 PM
>
> To: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
>
>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests
>
> Â
>
> Mike Thompson writes:
>
> 1) I don't know how anyone would able to tell this from simple on the
> ground observation.
>
> Â
>
> Granted: Â from an on-the-ground observation, a landuse=forest might look
> very much like a natural=wood.  However, if you saw that part of the area
> had some stumps, you could safely conclude it is not natural=wood (unless
> there was "illegal logging†going on, and that DOES happen) but rather
> that it is landuse=forest.  THEN, there is where you know for a fact (from
> facts not on-the-ground, but perhaps from ownership data, signage like
> “Welcome to Sierra National Forest†or other sources) that THIS IS a
> real, live forest, in the sense OSM intends to mean here (landuse=forest
> implies timber harvesting now or at some point in the future).
>
> Â
>
>
> 2) While the English word "natural" might suggest this, we use "natural"
> for other things that man has a hand in creating or modifying, e.g.
> natural=water for a man made reservoir.
>
> Â
>
> Again, I’ll grant you this, but it only shows that OSM’s tagging is
> not always internally consistent.  I can live with that.  What is
> required (and “more clear" in the case of natural=water) is the
> understanding that consensus has emerged for natural=water: Â this gets
> tagged on bodies of water which are both natural and man-made, and that’s
> OK, and we don’t lose sleep over it or look for more consistency.Â
> It’s like an exception to a rule of grammar:  you just learn it, and say
> “shucks†that there are such things as grammatical exceptions.
>
> Â
>
> I’m doing my very best to listen, and it seems many others are, too.Â
> Listening is the heart of building consensus.  Let us not also become
> entrenched in minor exceptions or established conventions adding further
> confusion when identifying them as such actually can help us achieve more
> clarity.
>
> Â
>
>
> SteveA
>
> California
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> --
> Elliott Plack
> http://elliottplack.me _______________________________________________
> Talk-us mailing list Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
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>
> Charlotte Wolter
> 927 18th Street Suite A
> Santa Monica, California
> 90403
> +1-310-597-4040
> techlady at techlady.com
> Skype: thetechlady
>
> --
Elliott Plack
http://elliottplack.me
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