Is a water= tag even needed at all in these cases then? natural=water + name="Foobar Pond" seems to cover it. I'm not sure what specific added information is conveyed by "lake", "pond", or even "lake_pond". It's a natural body of water with a name. If we need tagging to indicate freshwater vs brackish vs saltwater, or depth, or murkiness, those seem like separate tags.
On Thu, Nov 12, 2020, 12:26 PM Clifford Snow <cliff...@snowandsnow.us> wrote: > Out of curiosity I decided to look at how USGS defines lakes and ponds > after noticing that their Feature Code is listed as lake/pond. Here is how > they define the two, as well as rivers and streams and mountains and hills. > > > > > > > > *There are no official definitions for generic terms as applied to > geographic features. Any existing definitions derive from the needs and > applications of organizations using those geographic features. The > Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database utilizes 63 broad > categories of feature types defined solely to facilitate retrieval of > entries with similar characteristics from the database.These categories > generally match dictionary definitions, but not always. The differences are > thematic and highly subjective. For example, a lake is classified in the > GNIS as a "natural body of inland water”, which is a feature description > that can also apply to a reservoir, a pond, or a pool. All "linear flowing > bodies of water" are classified as streams in the GNIS. At least 121 other > generic terms fit this broad category, including creeks and rivers. Some > might contend that a creek must flow into a river, but such hierarchies do > not exist in the nation's namescape. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names > once stated that the difference between a hill and a mountain was 1,000 > feet of local relief, but this was abandoned in the early 1970s. Broad > agreement on such questions is essentially impossible, which is why there > are no official feature classification standards.* > > > I think they are smart to not try to classify lakes and ponds separately. > Back to the original discussion started by Joseph Eisenberg, I'd be in > favor of just using water=lake/pond or water=lake_pond. > > Best, > Clifford > > -- > @osm_washington > www.snowandsnow.us > OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging >
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