Please don't confuse "land cover" with the
political/jurisdictional and geographical definition of "inside the
boundaries of a national forest."
One more remark. Shouldn't the political/jurisdictional and
geographical definition of "inside the boundaries of a national
forest be defined by the boundary-, protected area-, and
park:type=national_forest- tags? Moreover, how can one tag a
physical forest (areas with trees present) inside the national
forest?
Boundary, yes. (As Greg Troxel pointed out as "one of the three
things going on here: boundaries, landuse and land cover").
Protected area, yes. The park:type tag seems to be a more recent
(circa 2009/2010) "invention" by Apo42, a California-based OSM
volunteer who also maps in Austria. (Being somewhat local to one
another, he and I have gone on hikes together and discuss OSM more
than occasionally). I'll let Apo speak for himself, but I really
like the park:type tag, so I use it extensively. It seems to be
something he started with his CASIL-based California State Park
uploads, but it is quite extensible to park:type=county_park,
city_park, private_park (and more), so I continue to use that sort of
syntax when it makes sense to do so. However, I also believe the
park:type tag to not be widely used outside of California, nor is it
well-documented on OSM's wiki pages (to the best of my knowledge).
I do agree with Mike Thompson's statement: "If neither of the two
tags being discussed (landuse=forest, natural=wood) are appropriate
for tagging a generic area covered by trees (regardless if it is
"virgin", "managed"), it would be really helpful to have a tag that
could be used for this (i.e. indicate what the *landcover* is). This
information is useful when navigating the back country." Yet, I
continue to believe that a proper landcover=* tag is the right way to
do this. Simultaneously, I think it proper that national forests
have a landuse=forest tag, (in addition to proper boundary= and
protected_area= tags) even though they MAY or MAY NOT be "just
trees." My reasoning: "landuse=forest" means a managed forest land,
even if not exactly 100% of it is covered by trees. Such an area
that had 50% of its trees cut down (it IS a managed forest!) would
STILL be a managed forest, even though at least half of it is "not
now trees."
What I'm really saying is "I agree we could use better landcover
tagging." I'm not alone here.
Wilderness areas are WITHIN national forests and are designated with
the leisure=nature_reserve tag. This was discussed with my email
interaction with Troy Warburton of the USFS in Talk-us Digest, Vol
64, Issue 1.
Here are the tags I use for National Forests within the jurisdiction
of the US Department of Agriculture's Forest Service:
landuse=forest
boundary=national_park
boundary:type=protected_area
protect_class=6
protection_title=National Forest
ownership=national
name=Name of Forest
And here are the tags I use for Wilderness areas WITHIN National Forests:
leisure=nature_reserve
boundary=national_park
boundary:type=protected_area
protect_class=1b
protection_title=Wilderness
ownership=national
name=Name of Wilderness
Further answering Mike Thompson, I don't think it odd at all that
"parts of the U.S. National Forests are not treed, for example, parts
that are above treeline." The parts that are still "in" the forest
are still "in" the forest (which is what landuse=forest implies),
even if they are above the treeline and don't have trees. Yes, it
seems confusing, but only if you think "landuse=forest" implies "all
trees." It doesn't: it implies "all managed forest, whether with or
without trees."
SteveA
California
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