Key:water
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 water
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| Description |
|---|
| Specification of a water body |
| Group: Natural |
| Used on these elements |
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| Documented values: 4 |
| Requires |
| Useful combination |
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Status: Approved
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| Tools for this tag |
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This tag is used to specify what type of water body is tagged with natural=water, and must be used only in conjunction with it (see obsolete uses). When the latter tag is omitted, it's up to a renderer to decide whether natural=water is assumed.
Contents
Possible values
| Tagging | Description | Sample photo |
|---|---|---|
| natural=water water=lake |
A lake: a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin that is surrounded by land. Artificially created lakes are ponds or reservoirs. Intermittent lakes (which disappear seasonally) should be tagged with intermittent=yes; salt lakes — with salt=yes.
This value should be considered default for natural=water, when no water or other descriptive tags are specified. |
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| natural=water water=lagoon |
A lagoon: a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. It's better to specify saltness of water with salt=yes/no. | 
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| natural=water water=pond |
A pond: a body of standing water, man-made in most cases, that is usually smaller than a lake. Salt evaporation ponds should be tagged with landuse=salt_pond, open-air swimming pools — with leisure=swimming_pool. | 
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| natural=water water=reflecting_pool |
A reflecting pool: a water feature found in gardens, parks, and at memorial sites. It usually consists of a shallow pool of water, undisturbed by fountain jets, for a calm reflective surface. | 
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| natural=water water=reservoir |
A reservoir or an artificial lake is used to store water. | 
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| natural=water water=canal |
A body of a canal, a man-made channel for water. Should contain waterway=canal way inside. | 
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| natural=water water=river |
A body of river. Should contain waterway=river way inside. | 
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| natural=water water=fish_pass |
The body of a fish pass for the fish to pass waterway dams or weirs. Should contain waterway=fish_pass way inside. | 
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| natural=water water=oxbow |
An oxbow lake: U-shaped body of water formed when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off to create a lake. |
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| natural=water water=lock |
A lock chamber outline: a part of river, canal or lake system, level of which can be manipulated. The mapping of a lock and its parts is described on wiki-site lock=*. | 
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| natural=water water=moat |
A deep, wide defensive ditch, normally filled with water, surrounding a fortified habitation. | 
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| natural=water water=wastewater |
A clarifier/settling basin of a wastewater treatment plant. Maybe a landuse=basin should also be added. The whole area of the plant should get a man_made=wastewater_plant, BTW. | 
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| natural=water water=stream_pool |
A stream pool; a small and usually deep collection of fresh water, supplied by a spring, or occurring along a stream or river. Water velocity in the pool is typically much lower than the watercourse. Frequently found below a waterfall. | 
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Example
For Lake Baikal area tags would be as follows:
natural=water water=lake name=Baikal
Rivers and reservoirs
This tag implies that all water bodies are tagged uniformly, with natural=water and water=*. There were several cases when this pattern was broken: river bodies, reservoirs and, occasionaly, ponds. Now all those features can be tagged with natural=water, but the original tags may be preserved for legacy renderers (although there's not many cases when their processing is different from natural=water).
So, those are equivalent, while natural=water scheme is preferred:
- waterway=riverbank is the same as natural=water + water=river
- landuse=reservoir is the same as natural=water + water=reservoir
- landuse=pond is the same as natural=water + water=pond
Obsolete uses
- water=intermittent : consider using intermittent=yes instead
- water=cove and water=bay : the established tagging for bays, coves and inlets is natural=bay
See also
- natural=mud
- natural=water
- man_made=reservoir_covered
- landuse=salt_pond
- Proposed features/Water details
- Proposed features/Water cover
Possible Tagging Mistakes
type=lake - If you know places with this tag, verify if it could be tagged with another tag. Automated edits are strongly discouraged unless you really know what you are doing!Attention: relations with type=lake are also used to map lake depth lines, so the relation is completely unrelated to multipolygons
