How to tag Balancing Ponds?

richardwallis1996 · 2024-07-10T11:09:59.194Z

Hi there,

What would be the best way to tag balancing ponds? Ponds like this are often dry in the summer and are designed to contain water during heavy rain and allow it to slowly release into the drainage systems.

I have created one with the following tags:

natural=water
water=basin
basin=detention
intermittent=yes

OpenStreetMap

Way: 1300477043

OpenStreetMap is a map of the world, created by people like you and free to use under an open license.

Thank you

Mateusz_Konieczny · 2024-07-10T11:11:52.114Z

This tagging seems fine to me

SekeRob · 2024-07-12T12:22:29.007Z

It boggles the mind how the wiki for basin states landuse=basin + type/function of basin + intermittent=yes/no and then seeing these legal tags, still in the JOSM standard preset, being overwritten after ID editors users get the yellow blob proposing to ditch absolute the ‘man_made’ element of landuse=basin for natural=water… There’s zero natural about them, a few big ones being constructed ATM on the river Pescara to catch the excess rainwater that comes down at times and threatens to flood the lower lying town on the coast.

Seems to me a unilateral decisions the ID proggers took.

Duja · 2024-07-12T13:32:31.616Z

It boggles the mind even more that water surfaces would be tagged with landuse.

On the contrary, the general direction that the community has taken is that natural=water should be used to tag all inland water surfaces, no matter if their origin is natural or artificial – after all, the function should matter more than the origin. The similar landuse=reservoir has been deprecated and generally killed.

The whole natural vs. landuse vs. landcover approach was ill-conceived from the start (actually, nobody conceived it, it probably emerged organically), and the tension among those tags still reverberates. At least, natural=water has been sensibly taken out from that mess. If we haven’t already, we should deprecate and kill landuse=basin.

Mateusz_Konieczny · 2024-07-12T13:52:34.183Z

SekeRob:

There’s zero natural about them

natural= is not used only for pristine natural areas…

See say natural=tree used also for trees planted in urban areas.

(If someone wants nice definition for this key, then you can concentrate on fact that water itself is natural but in general all nice definitions for all values of given key are wrong)

And landuse=basin used for water area rather for entire basin landuse is deeply problematic

SomeoneElse · 2024-07-12T16:16:02.824Z

Duja:

It boggles the mind even more that water surfaces would be tagged with landuse.

.