Whitewater sports
 Feature page: Whitewater sports
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| Description |
| Whitewater sports for canoeists, rafters and others. |
| Tags |
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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. Any 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. |
OpenStreetMap includes information for whitewater sports, including for canoeist, rafters and others. See WikiProject Whitewater Maps to join the people behind this work.
All rivers with width more than 5 meters has to be draw by waterway=riverbank in addition to waterway=river.
Tags
| Name | Type | tag=value | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rapid Grade |  |
whitewater:rapid_grade=# | See Proposal for change! 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Whitewater rapid grade. May be be followed by a '+' or '-'. Node as part of the waterway, or could be a short way  as part of the waterway.
| |
| Section Grade | |
whitewater:section_grade=# | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Whitewater section grade. May be be followed by a '+' or '-'. 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 to 3 hour paddle, a river would typically be broken up into smaller sections than that, giving more grading ganularity. Each section_grade starts at a put_in, and ends at a egress. The grade is like the moast difficult rapid in this section (wiht no separate put_in/egress). Map rendering may be helped if small gaps are ommitted between sections (so that one does not join into another). | |
| Rapid Name | |
whitewater:rapid_name=* | Name of a rapid (if it has a widely accepted name) | |
| RSection Name | |
whitewater:section_name=* | Name of a section (if it has a widely accepted name) | |
| Put in | |
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). Remember to add name=name |
| Exit | |
whitewater=egress |  |
A good/recommended/commonly used place to take out. Node placed on one side of the river |
| Put in/exit | |
whitewater=put_in;egress |  |
|
| Hazard | |
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. |
| Description | |
whitewater:description=text | text of interest to canoeists |
A selection of additional values have been used in some areas with the whitewater key (see here for an analysis of values used). One used more than 100 times but not listed above is whitewater=portage_way. The key 'canoe' has been used by a few people (analysis) as has the key 'kayak' (analysis). Several suggestions have been made on the talk page for WikiProject_Whitewater_Maps for ways to ensure that this tagging scheme is compatible with tags of use for non-whitewater paddling, including the use of paddlecraft=put_in;egress (for flat-water or sea locations).
Icons by Stella 2008-07-19
Other useful existing tags:
| Name | Type | tag=value | Icon | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| River | |
waterway=river | Always tag the whole thing as a river or stream | |
| Stream | |
waterway=stream | Always tag the whole thing as a river or stream | |
| Weir | |
waterway=weir |  |
A dam which has water passing over the top or through a channel. Use the whitewater tags to describe the weir as a hazard requiring portage and/or rapid grading. |
| Width | |
width=* | Approximate average width of a river/section in metres. Can also use source:width=estimated while kayaking | |
| Camp Site | |
tourism=camp_site |  |
a place to camp |
| Parking | |
amenity=parking |  |
a place to park |
| Toilets | |
amenity=toilets | Public toilets (note the plural) |
There are some existing/developing useful tagging conventions around access information - see details of: access=* or boat=* or canoe=* at Access, and boat=* at Key:boat and also a proposal at Proposed features/access restrictions 1.5.
There are also some existing/developing conventions about water coverage which may be useful (where, for example, an island may only appear occasionally). See Proposed_features/Water_cover. Current formal suggestions are for water=intermittent and water=tidal.
Grading decisions
These are subjective. If you don't know a grade or can't decide Set it to unknown.
Grad 1
Grad 2
Grad 3
Grad 4
Grad 5
Grad 6
Maps
Forth Canoe Club Open WhiteWater Map is a Mapnik rendering by Jonathan Riddell
The code is kept in bzr in Launchpad
Only selected tiles are generated, if you want your area rendered please ask Jonathan.
For alternative methods of viewing rendered maps please see suggestions on WikiProject Whitewater Maps
