WikiProject Whitewater Maps

From OpenStreetMap

This is a project to create whitewater maps for use by whitewater kayakers/rafters. Extreme! It's a similar idea to WikiProject Piste Maps for snowsports, and like that project, the information is not particularly useful for plotting conventional maps, but could sprout a separate website for a whitewater map rendering, and maybe even a separate database. For the moment we'll lob it all the central OSM database though.

Contents 1 Who? 2 How? 3 Tags (proposal) 3.1 Grading decisions 4 Progress 4.1 North Wales 4.2 South West England 4.3 Middle of England 4.4 East Scotland 5 Maps 6 Related projects / sites 7 Safety Note

Who?

• Harry Wood
• Jonathan Riddell too.
• Chris Nicolson who aims to evangelise this kinda thing to Strathclyde University Canoe Club.

How?

Take a GPS receiver with you when you go whitewater kayaking / rafting, to record the route of the river. Take note of (or photos of) any interesting rapids or hazards along the way.

Ideally you'd have a waterproof camera and waterproof GPS unit (such as NaviGPS). Harry does it with a non-waterproof camera in a pelicase, but this makes it harder to get photos of every rapid/feature. Chris will use his phone and a GPSlim240 in a peli-case for recording and handy friend with a waterproof camera for pictures. Take advantage of always paddling in a minimum group of 3!

Ideally you'd paddle down the middle of the river. Probably more important for wide rivers. Less so for narrow UK ditches. Actually narrow rivers with lots of trees can loose GPS signal entirely. Improved signal might be achieved by gaffer taping the unit to your kayak or helmet, but Harry has found the front buoyancy-aid pocket to work fine. Ideally each river would be surveyed several times to pick up more details, more GPS tracks, and get a second opinion on gradings etc. We kayakers should not be afraid to adjust each other's work!

Tags (proposal)

These should be considered a proposal, although most OSM people will probably not be interested in discussing/voting them. Harry's been using them, but wouldn't mind changing.

• whitewater=put_in - A good/recommended/commonly used place to put in. Node placed on one side of the river (like a bus_stop is placed one side of a road)
• whitewater=egress - A good/recommended/commonly used place to take out. Node placed on one side of the river
• whitewater:rapid_grade=1/2/3/4/5/6 +/- or unknown - Whitewater rapid grade. Node as part of the waterway, or could be a short way as part of the waterway.
• whitewater:rapid_name=* - Name of a rapid (if it has a widely accepted name)
• whitewater:section_grade=1/2/3/4/5/6 +/- or unknown - Whitewater section grade. Way as part of the waterway. Part of the route which you want to give a grade to. It would typically be at least half a kilometre. A very short section of river could be tagged whitewater:rapid_grade instead. A section doesn't mean a whole 2/3 hour paddle, a river would typically be broken up into smaller sections than that, giving more grading ganularity.
• whitewater=hazard - minor or major hazard. Also use a description tag. Place node to indicate river left or river right, or use a mid-way node.
• whitewater:description=* - descriptions which are only of interest to whitewater sports.

Other useful existing tags:

• Always tag the whole thing with waterway=river or waterway=stream and also name=
• waterway=weir
• Key:waterway

Grading decisions

These are subjective. Could take any discussions/debates onto http://kayakwiki.org If you don't know a grade or can't decide . Set it to unknown.

Progress

North Wales

• Afon Llyfni - 1st pass Harry Wood

South West England

• Dart Loop - 1st pass Harry Wood

Middle of England

• Derwent, Darley Dale to Matlock ukriverguidebook Jonathan Riddell

East Scotland

• Tay at Grandtully ukriversguidebook 2 ukriversguidebook 1 Access point and Grandtully rapids Jonathan Riddell
• Tay at Stanley ukriversguidebook Access, weir, egress Jonathan Riddell

Maps

Maps by Jonathan Riddell now up at http://krissy.homelinux.com/

This is hosted on an ADSL line so may disappear at any time.

Code is in Launchpad

Key:

• Put in
• Egress (get out)
• Weir

TODO:

• better put_in/egress icons
• seal launch icon
• fix icon priorities
• better host (offers welcome)
  • I can host it on a server, starting from a week or so once we've moved it from the US! Chrisnicolson 08:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• automatic update from OSM
• better river data, get mapping!

Related projects / sites

• WikiProject United Kingdom Waterways - more general effort to do river mapping in the UK (and canals)
• kayakwiki.org - Wiki about kayaking, including collaboratively created guidebooks (needs maps!)

Safety Note

As per OpenStreetMap:General disclaimer any kayak map information created here, should definitely be considered incomplete and a work in progress. In particular hazards may be missing from the map, or river rapids/sections may be graded inaccurately/incorrectly. This is unavoidable, even in finished well-polished kayaking guidebooks, because rivers can change, however in this case the whitewater maps have only been created after a brief "survey" of the river, and are likely to have omissions. You can help fix them!

OpenStreetMap (and the people who build the maps) accept no responsibility for loss, injury or death caused as a result of following information appearing on our maps, or derived from our map data. Water sports safety and rescue is best learnt and practised in the safe and managed environment of a recognised training course.

We are also not recommending farting around with GPS Units unless you are confident enough on the particular river, to cope with this distraction!