How should areas of bare soil, such as badlands, be tagged? Currently there are documented tags for dry areas of bedrock, stones and sand:
natural=bare_rock, natural=shingle, natural=scree, and natural=sand For tidal areas, beaches and wetlands there's also natural=beach, natural=shoal and wetland=mud However, there's no documented, common tag for dry areas of exposed clay, silt or mixed soil. natural=badlands has been used 5 times, but this is rather specific and may not be well-known outside of North America: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=badlands natural=desert is common, but includes all kinds of vegetated and unvegetated arid areas; many of these can be tagged with natural= grassland, heath, scrub, sand, scree etc. natural=clay has been used twice: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=clay natural=earth has been used 20 times: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=earth natural=bare_earth has 23 uses: https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=bare_earth There's also natural=pebbles with 67 uses (https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=pebbles) and natural=gravel 90 times - https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/natural=gravel But most of those could be scree or shingle, which would be more specific. Would it be best to describe the type of soil, like natural=clay, =silt, =earth, =pebbles, =gravel? Should mappers use surface=* without another top-level tag? Should natural=bare_earth be used in general for clay and other bare soils? Or is natural=badlands best to describe the specific feature of an arid area where the bare soil is exposed due to erosion? - Joseph _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
