[OSM-talk] Rocky beaches

[Stephen Hope]

I agree, high water would seem like the 'natural' coast.  But I think
you have to modify this when you look at deltas with swamps and fens.
If you look at the outline on most (any?) maps with a major river
system mouth, they show all the swampy areas as part of the land, and
don't try and distinguish between the bits that have a couple of
inches of water over them all the time and the ones that are tidal.
It seems to be "if it has plants/trees growing on it, it's land".

Detailed maps can and do break it down much more, but the "simple
coast" outlines usually seem to include tidal swamps as land.

Stephen

On 15/04/2008, David Groom <reviews at pacific-rim.net> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>  From: "Cartinus" <cartinus at xs4all.nl>
>  To: <talk at openstreetmap.org>
>  Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 10:24 PM
>  Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Rocky beaches
>
>
>
> The approach I have been taking is to tag natural=coastline as an
>  approximation of high water.  Any area of sand which is normally above the
>  high water mark I have tagged as natural=beach.  To tag the coastline as the
>  low water line would I believe in many instances give an outline which would
>  not be recognisable to most people as "the coast".  As an example see the