Tag:natural=wood

+/- natural=wood Description Natural primeval woodland. Used on these elements Useful combination name=* wood=* Used combinations in World Australia/Oceania Europe (list) Asia (list) Central America (list) South America (list) Africa (list) Status Approved

Contents 1 Description 2 Tagging 2.1 proposed extension 3 Rendering 4 Notes 4.1 Approach 1 4.2 Approach 2 4.3 Approach 3 5 Discussion 5.1 Advantages of each approach 6 See also

Description

Natural primeval woodland. For forests that are managed by someone, use landuse=forest instead.

Tagging

Tagging scheme for natural=wood

Tag	Notes	Example
name=*	Name of woodland.
wood=*	Type of woodland.	coniferous, deciduous, palm, mixed

proposed extension

Tag	Notes	Example
type=*	Do trees keep leaves all year?	deciduous, evergreen, mixed

Rendering

Mapnik	Osmarender	OpenCycleMap
	?	?

Notes

When tagging woodland, two approaches are advocated by different groups:

Approach 1

• Check if the area is "managed maintained or industrial used forest". This is almost always the case in Europe, with an emphasis on "managed maintained". Only very small areas are really left untouched and can be considered wild boondocks, primeval forest, virgin wood, national parks etc.
  • If it is managed forest, set landuse=forest.
  • If it is primeval woodland with no forestry use, where nobody removes dead trees, plants new trees etc, set natural=wood.

Approach 2

• natural=wood is used to mark areas covered by trees.
• landuse=forest is used to mark areas of land used for forestry. That is, where humans commercially plant, cut, and harvest trees for lumber, paper etc.
• woodland=virgin is used to mark areas of virgin woodland unmanaged by man.

Approach 3

• wood=* is used to mark the presence or absence of trees.
• natural=wood is used to mark areas of unmanaged forest. It implies wood=yes
• landuse=forest is used to mark areas of managed forest. It implies wood=yes

Discussion

The use of these tags has become the subject of much debate due to inconsistent application, and wooly term usage.

Advantages of each approach

• Approach 1
  • More commonly used after a bot was used to retag existing woodland this way.
• Approach 2
  • Tags appear consistent – having trees on is not a "land use".
  • Allows for woods to be marked in areas where other landuses exist (e.g. areas of trees in the middle of a quarry)
  • Does not require the tagger to make a distinction between managed and virgin woodland, which can be near impossible to make even for someone surveying the area.
  • Allows for tagging of areas of commercial forestry which are not currently wooded (landuse=forest + natural=scrub).
  • Is more consistent with tagging of other features such as reservoirs, which are tagged natural=water, along with their land use.
• Approach 3
  • As for Approach 2
  • Uses only existing tags.
  • Existing tagging largely retains its meaning.
  • Further landuses might be specified to distinguish between forest managed for decorative/leisure use, lumber/pulp production, or ecological improvement.

See also

• landuse=forest for maintained forests
• natural=tree for lone or significant trees
• taxon=* for species and common name and discussion of recording cover values
• Vegetation - summary of tags for various types of trees and plants
• When should we use landuse=forest rather than natural=wood? on help.openstreetmap.org

Related terms: woods. forest.