On Wednesday 11 September 2013, Tod Fitch wrote: > > I am not convinced that tundra is orthogonal to > wood/shrub/grassland/heath as those are also very broad > classifications. Is that wood dense or openly spaced trees? Are they > deciduous or evergreen? Are those shrubs small or tall? What is your > judgement of small or large? Is that hillside of live oak plants > better described as shrubs (heath) or a trees (wood)?
I did not want to judge on the merits of any of those taggings. I just wanted to point out that characterizing something as tundra requires a somewhat more abstract understanding of the ecosystem than wood/shrub/grassland/heath. There is nothing wrong about this as long as the basis of this classification is verifiable. There are certainly difficult cases (especially in dry mountain areas) but the normal situation is that there is a fairly clear tree line and that tundra starts where the trees end. And you are right that tundra is still foremost a vegetation characterization so in a way also similar to wood/shrub/grassland/heath. The situation with deserts is different since here the lack of a clearly defined edge is the normal situation (exceptions are when the desert edges to water or to human use land). So although the wish to tag something as natural=desert is understandable - there are many regions most people would characterize primarily as desert - there is simply no way with the current OSM data model to properly map deserts. But i agree that there is a lack of established taggings for xeromorph vegetation which might explain some uses of natural=desert. Greetings, -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
