Is there any established method for tagging sewer networks, or water utility networks?

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I’m referring to, say, pipes that run underground carrying sewage, or water. All I could find on the wiki are tags like utility=sewerage or utility=water but not much for the physical carriers of said utilities.

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That would be Tag:man_made=pipeline - OpenStreetMap Wiki, but the issue, of course, is identifying just where it runs? (Unless you’ve got access to usable plans?)

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Often there is above-ground infrastructure. In the UK, the Derwent Aqueduct is a purple line on this map and as well as buildings for valves etc. there are a series of access gates along the length that actually make finding the location fairly easy.

Obviously this is only one example, but often there will be some above-ground infrastructure.

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It can get very confusing with all the different types of “sewer”, “sewage”, “sewerage” tags we have in use, which apply to different types of physical features related to sewer networks.

When I was mapping a sewer network in Sydney, I put together some notes at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Sydney_Water#Northern_Suburbs_Ocean_Outfall_Sewer_(NSOOS) about how I decided what primary tags to use. Is it man_made=pipeline, waterway=drain? This is what I decided:

Per Key:waterway#Values when considering free flow vs pipe flow given the sewer line is gravity fed, not pressurised and would usually contain a free surface (the ceiling) where air is present we consider it free flow. Therefore according to Key:waterway#Values it is not man_made=pipeline and must therefore be a waterway=*.

waterway=* is broken down into natural watercourses and artificial waterways, since this is an artificial waterway, we considered waterway=drain which is documented as “An artificial free flow waterway used for carrying superfluous water like storm water or industrial discharge, usually lined with concrete, stones or similar.”

The NSOOS is artificial, free flow, carries superfluous water and lined with concrete and therefore waterway=drain has been selected as the waterway tag value.

For the tunnel sections tunnel=flooded is appropriate, for the aqueduct sections bridge=aqueduct is appropriate.

usage=transmission is selected as the sewage is carried a long distance and is a main transmission line.

The location=* tag should also be used, the tunnel sections should have location=underground and aqueduct sections should have location=overhead.

Additional tags used are

substance=sewage
flow_direction=forward
operator=*
operator:wikidata=*

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Is there any established method for tagging sewer networks, or water utility networks?

I would say that not mapping them is typical, as they are nearly impossible to map from survey - and mapping them would add quite significant clutter.

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I would agree, although I could be convinced otherwise if a useful reason for mapping such underground object was presented. I think to be useful, a lot more information would have to be collected for each node and way used to represent such a network.

(UK centric response) I’ve been mapping and analysing water and wastewater networks from the time I recorded them with pen on paper. We have design drawings, survey records, maintenance records etc and still there are many errors. You can’t just join the dots with straight lines, the dots being manhole covers or other surface features currently visible. They get buried too. Someone has mapped some new network close to where I live. I know it is not as recorded by the network owner and operator as I currently have access to that data (but can’t use it to correct OSM).

A manhole cover might give you access to a simple chamber with an inlet and an outlet. A manhole cover might give you access to a complex chamber of inlets, outlets, overflows, pumps, syphons, weirs, backdrops. Little of this is visible to those who understand it. @aharvey link to what worked in Sydney would not work as is in the UK. Not all sewerage is gravity. Some is pumped and under pressure, some is vacuum pipes. Also what is ‘sewage’? We identify foul water, surface water and combined contents. This impacts on what happens to the network in storm events. A ‘sewage’ definition is not really very useful - similar to highway=path, it might be correct, but how does that help anyone? Plus we want sizes, levels, materials etc. This is to have a useful record.

So, how does recording such networks benefit OSM and the users of OSM? Aren’t there enough above ground features yet to be recorded without introducing what you can’t observe? I’m all for mapping features that can be seen and I have done so. They may help navigation. Recording a water or sewage pumping station as a fact is reasonable, but you can’t assume where it is pumping to with a way linking it to another sewer or water network feature.

Similarly I’d map UK Combined Sewer Overflows as they have a link to other open data sources AND there is clear public interest (and huge understandable ignorance) in their impact.

Obviously if someone wants to map appropriately licensed data of underground networks, then none can stop them, but I’d just hate to see another record that would no doubt introduce new errors and well as duplicate existing ones.

UK Centric mini-rant over. :slightly_smiling_face:

Adrian

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For me at least, it’s interesting, and that alone is enough of a reason to map them. It’s also a bit of a challenge, finding manholes is like following breadcrumbs, trying to link them all together and work out where they go is an unsolved mystery. I realise that we may never be able to fully complete all the intricacies of an underground sewer network, and you can’t always just link manholes together with a pipeline, but no harm in trying to map as much as we can. Appropriately tagged, others can ignore these underground pipeline and drain features.

Presence of sewer pipes can indicate potential areas of sewage overflow and downstream contamination to you can decide areas you may want to avoid.

The fact that we don’t have any other open data (that I know if, and in my local case) is enough of a reason to justify trying to create one through OSM.

Same here. Generally it’s gravity fed down to a local pumping station, which then pumps it back somewhere to be then transported via either gravity fed or pressurised pipes to the treatment plant. Before being discharged either upstream in a river or creek, at the shoreline, or deep offshore the coast.

Again in the Australian context we have “stormwater” which is rain water which has fallen on hard surfaces like your roof or the road, which then goes into underground stormwater pipes or drains which eventually discharge into the natural waterway network like streams, rivers or bodies of water. In OSM it’s substance=rainwater

Then we have the “wastewater” system which is also known as sewage, it is the used water that goes down kitchen sinks, toilets and shower/bath drains. In OSM it’s substance=sewage.

I’m not sure the best way to tag combined stormwater (rainwater) and wastewater (sewage), I guess you could use substance=sewage;rainwater.

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For the terminology, sewage is “municipal wastewater” vs industrial etc, similar to how garbage/trash is “municipal solid waste”. “Sewer” doesn’t refer to the same thing as “sewage”, although “drain” may refer to stormwater (and sewer for sewage) in systems where there are separated sewers.
Ignoring industrial and agricultural if they are too intertwined, and don’t have standalone treatment facilities (true?), there are leachate treatment facilities for =landfill , which should still be =wastewaster_plant as there’s no reason to invent something else. So “wastewater” should be treated as a generic term. Combined vs Separated sewers could be distinguished somehow otherwise.

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they definitely can have standalone treatment facilities

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