Australian Tagging Guidelines/Coastal Features

Coastal environments are difficult to map in OSM and have mostly only been mapped to a very low level of detail. The environment is constantly changing, sand shifts, and tides come and go, but we don't believe these difficulties mean these environments can't or shouldn't be mapped to great detail. This page attempts to document our current approaches to representing the Australian coastal system in OpenStreetMap, but it's an ongoing work in progress. If you're interested please join to help shape our coastal features mapping.

Water Marks

Mean High Water Springs (MHWS)

natural=coastline is used to mark the mean high water springs (MHWS) line.

Maritime Baseline

• boundary=maritime + boundary=baseline

River Banks

• natural=water + water=river

Tidal Limits

The section of a waterway up to the tidal limit can be tagged with tidal=yes.

Coastal Features

Sand Dunes

• landform=dune_system

Sea Walls

Tagging

• barrier=wall + wall=seawall

Examples

• Cronulla Seabee Wall Cronulla Seabee Wall

Groynes

• man_made=groyne

Sea Caves

• natural=cave_entrance

Coastal rockfalls, scree and boulder fields

• natural=cliff
• natural=scree
• natural=bare_rock

Examples

• Scree between Mona Vale and Warriewood Beaches Scree between Mona Vale and Warriewood Beaches
• Bare Rock of a cliff face between Mona Vale and Warriewood beaches. Bare Rock of a cliff face between Mona Vale and Warriewood beaches.

Seafloor

Kelp forest, Seagrasses, Coral Reefs, seafloor mapping

This page will try to explain and guide Australian Mappers with how to properly identify and map coastal features with a consistent tagging and drawing approach. This will cover the features below:

Coastlines

By the very definition, coastal features are geological features present along a coastline of a landmass. However defining that coastline can be difficult. Th

See Also

• https://imagico.de/blog/en/coastal-geography-for-mappers-in-openstreetmap/