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 <[email protected]> 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: > 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 <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Hi Steve and all, > >  > > 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 > >  > > [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Verifiability > > [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/landcover > >  > > From: OSM Volunteer stevea [ mailto:[email protected] > <[email protected]>] > > Sent: Monday, May 09, 2016 3:29 PM > > To: [email protected] > > > Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Tagging National Forests > >  > > Mike Thompson writes: > > 1) I don't know how anyone would able to tell this from simple on the > ground observation. > >  > > Granted:  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). > >  > > > 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. > >  > > 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:  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. > 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. > >  > > I’m doing my very best to listen, and it seems many others are, too. > 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. > >  > > > SteveA > > California > _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > > -- > Elliott Plack > http://elliottplack.me _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list [email protected] > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > > Charlotte Wolter > 927 18th Street Suite A > Santa Monica, California > 90403 > +1-310-597-4040 > [email protected] > Skype: thetechlady > > -- Elliott Plack http://elliottplack.me
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