Tag:waterway=riverbank
+/- waterway=riverbank
For tagging wide rivers which need to be defined by an area rather than just shown as a linear way.
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This describes the tagging scheme for large rivers, or sections of a river which are wide enough to "require" mapping of distinct areas of water/river banks. Example: River Thames as it flows through Central London.
For small rivers it is not necessary to draw an area for the riverbank, but it might still be interesting, especially if it is irregular.
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How to map
Common tagging
The area of the river should be marked by a closed area drawn along the riverbanks, and closed at each end. In practice, as wide rivers tend to be long, the river will be drawn as a series of adjacent closed areas (ways 1 & 3 in image below).
These areas should be tagged as waterway=riverbank,
In addition a way tagged as waterway=river (way 4 in image below), must be drawn in the direction of the river flow (i.e. from source to sea) along the Thalweg or the deepest points of the riverbed. Make sure that the waterway=river ways are topologically correct like the highway=* tags.
New tagging
A new tagging schema has been approved in which every surface of water gets the tag natural=water, and this is refined with a tag water=river, water=canal or similar.
The ways around a river can still be tagged as waterway=riverbank (as they still are riverbanks), although this isn't needed, and riverbanks aren't treated as areas any more.
An additional way with the tag waterway=river is still needed to denote the current of the river and to place access tags for boat-routing, like in the common tagging.
Islands
A multipolygon relation should be defined and the island and the main river bank included in the relation. The main riverbank way (way 1 in image below) will have the role 'outer' and the way for the island (way 2 in image below) will have the role 'inner'.
Unification of the island case and normal case with a multipolygon relation
Another way to tag those large rivers using multipolygon relations would be to create only one relation for the whole river. This avoids the need to create arbitrary cuts along the river. However, longer rivers mapped with that approach cause problems for some data users. As multipolygons for the entire river offer no tangible advantages[citation needed], but place an unnecessary burden on data consumers[citation needed], they should not be used. Use multiple small multipolygons instead.
Tags used are :
- Common tagging: type=multipolygon + waterway=riverbank + name=* + ... for the relation containing ways 1 to 7
- Members ways 1 to 6 have role outer and way 7 has role inner
- Ways 1 to 6 are tagged waterway=riverbank. Way 7 can have no tag at all or if it is itself something tag it with what it is.
- As waterway=riverbank is normally only used on areas (see this page), this tagging conflicts with that definition. You could also use natural=riverbank for this to avoid confusion about weather it's an area or not.
- Direction of ways does not matter
River junctions
Way 1 and 2 should always get the tag waterway=river with additional tags as name=*. Also ensure they are connected. This could be important for boat routing or other river connection analysis.
For the river banks there are several possible approaches.
- Simple tagging on ways - Rivers like this can be mapped with simple closed ways
where 3,4 and 5 would all be the same way, with an additional section closing the loop at the top somewhere, and the tag waterway=riverbank. Likewise 6,4,7,8 and some additional closing segments would be mapped as a single closed way. The section at 4 would be sharing the same nodes in both ways.
- Multipolygon relations - Rather than closed ways you can use Relation:multipolygons
, containing the ways 4 and 6 to 8 for the horizontal river, and 3 to 5 for the vertical river. Multipolygons are more complex but have some advantages. They can be bigger, and they can exclude islands areas ('inner'). The tags would be: type=multipolygon + waterway=riverbank
The above two approaches have an inaccuracy, because the way between the two rivers in a junction (number 4) isn't a riverbank, so it ideally shouldn't be tagged as one either. The new water=river tagging approach combined with multipolygons, offers an alternative:
- Multipolygon with accurate riverbank tagging - The two different river areas would be mapped as type=multipolygon + natural=water + water=river + name=* + ... Then in addition to the multipolygon tagging, the individual ways 3 to 8 get the tag waterway=riverbank, except way 4 which isn't a riverbank. (Note that even though using waterway=riverbank on ways fits better with the meaning of the word "riverbank" in natural language, it is incompatible with the mainstream definition of waterway=riverbank as an area tag. So use this interpretation at your own risk. You could also use the tag natural=riverbank to circumvent this ambiguity.)
Varying water level river
We might aim to mark riverbanks on its high-water extent, including sandbanks. Therefore non-permanent islands (sandbanks) are not included. Only permanent islands are marked.
This is consistent with mapping of natural=coastline which we aim to place at the high-tide level. Rivers can have complicated flood characteristics. We wouldn't map flood plains as part of the large river, unless perhaps they are flooded as often as every year, such that nothing gets built there (approximate rule of thumb, open for discussion). Some tagging ideas relating to this: Proposed features/floodplain and Key:flood_prone
In general these rules can be followed more closely if we have better data (ideally someone living locally observing the river's position) When sketching from imagery, it is acceptable to just do our best based on what we can see (e.g., assume visible sandbanks get washed over as pictured above) Note that you should always be careful to avoid overriding valuable on-the-ground mapping with information sketched from imagery.
Restrictions
Restrictions go on the central way tagged with waterway=river.
Riverbank mapping hint
This describes how to use the "create parallel way" tool in Potlatch 2 to create a riverbank from a river. This method works best when mapping a section of river that has a consistent width and each side of the riverbank is nearly identical in shape.
- Create a waterway=river down the middle of the river
- Select a section of the river that has a consistent width
- Select the parallel tool or type "p"
- Adjust the new parallel way's distance from the original way so the new way is half the width of the river (zooming in helps)
- Create a parallel way on the opposite side of the original river
- Label both new ways identically as waterway=riverbank
- Connect the ends of each new riverbank to create a closed loop
- Use the "merge ways" tool to merge these into a single way representing the riverbank area.
See also
- waterway=river
- natural=water
- water=*
- Relation:waterway
- WikiProject Rivers
- WikiProject Whitewater Maps additional tags for canoe sport
- Proposed features/Tidal Rivers
- Proposed_features/Water_cover
