Previously I have asked about mapping estuaries in relation to tidal channels and mangroves, and there was rough consensus that estuaries, like tidal channels, should be outside of the coastline (that is, the sea should include the area of the estuary of tidal channel).
But we did not decide on how to tag the estuary itself. Since the water is outside of the coastline, it's not strictly necessary to tag it, but it would be useful to know the areas covered by estuaries in a certain region, and differences in salinity or water flow can be used to distinguish rivers, estuaries and open sea. I would propose mapping estuaries by having the coastline go up to the inland limit of the estuary, but then also mapping the estuary as waterway=riverbank or water=river, + a tag that specifies that it is an estuary. There's already tidal=yes and salt=yes which can be used, but salt=yes doesn't have a clear cut-off for slightly saline estuaries, and not all estuaries have large tidal variation. So I would propose a new tag for estuaries. Options would be either `estuary=yes` which is pretty clearly a property tag, or river=estuary, which makes it clear that this is a class of river. river=estuary is nice, except when the area is tagged as wateryway=riverbank it doesn't match perfectly. - Joseph Eisenberg _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
