WikiProject Whitewater Maps

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Warning

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.

If you don't know about river practise or if a particular river is runnable, don't map the whitewater aspects of it at all.
Harry Wood kayak mapping

A project to map the world's whitewater sporting opportunities.

→ Whitewater sports for details of tagging.

Sadly no current rendering of the map with Whitewater features.

Who?

If your a keen whitewater user, why not join the project!

How to

Take a GPS receiver with you when you go paddling, to record the route of the river. Take a note of (or photos of) any interesting rapids or hazards along the way.

You will need waterproofing for your GPS and camera. Although the NaviGPS claims to be waterproof it is best to have a Aquapac or Pelicase. Harry does it with a non-waterproof camera in a Pelicase, but this makes it harder to get photos of every rapid/feature. Chris will use his phone and a GPSlim240 in a peli-case for recording and handy friend with a waterproof camera for pictures. Take advantage of always paddling in a minimum group of 3!

Ideally you'd paddle down the middle of the river. Probably more important for wide rivers. Less so for narrow UK ditches. Actually narrow rivers with lots of trees can loose GPS signal entirely. Improved signal might be achieved by gaffer taping the unit to your kayak or helmet, but Harry has found the front buoyancy-aid pocket to work fine. Ideally each river would be surveyed several times to pick up more details, more GPS tracks, and get a second opinion on gradings etc. We kayakers should not be afraid to adjust each other's work!

Mapping progress

Austria

United Kingdom

England

North East
North West
Central
South West

Scotland

North
Central
South

Wales

North
South

Slovenia

French Alps

Germany

Bavaria

River Progress Mapper Remarks
Loisach/Griesenschlucht aluka Loisach/Griesenschlucht at kajaktour.de
Wiesent
Waldnaab
Pegnitz

Schwarzwald

Untere Rhein-Region

Czech Republic

Slovakia

Switzerland

Italy

  • Passirio All but Merano part
  • Noce Confluence Noce Bianco x Vermigliana down to Slalom course in Mezzana
  • Isarco Vipetino - Mittewald

Catalunya

Related projects

  • United Kingdom waterways#Rivers - more general effort to do river mapping in the UK (and canals) Note that in the UK we can trace over NPE maps, which we should aim to do en masse. This will give us a great starting point for adding whitewater gradings.

Maps

OpenStreetBrowser rendering/tool

Open Street Browser has a 'Whitewater Information' category which displays the whitewater tags. This is a fairly new system and it still has bugs - if it doesn't work try a different browser as it isn't currently working with Internet Explorer (Jan 2012). Note that information is rendered when it's demanded... so on your first visit to a map area, unless someone else has viewed the area recently, the correct information will be displayed in the left column but the map will display "This overlay has not been completely rendered yet. Please try again later". You need to do as asked.

OpenStreetBrowser is particularly useful because it allows easy inspection of all tag contents including descriptions.

Tag information is available fairly quickly after being added to Open Street Map (and tag locations are displayed in the left column).

Currently OpenStreetBrowser uses coloured dots rather than icons for display - green for put_in or egress, red for hazard tags, green dotted lines for portage, and pink for all other information.

Look for the 'Whitewater Information' sub category under the 'Waterways and Other Water' category which is accessed through the 'more categories' link in the left column - or try this map of Scotland which should have the whitewater information already displayed. A second sub category displaying river, reservoir, lake (etc) information is also available.

OsmAnd+

The Android app OsmAnd has a Boat profile for viewing, planning routes on and navigating waterways. To show whitewater/paddlecraft objects, open Plugins > enable Nautical map view. Switch to the Boat profile then, Configure map > Routes > check the box for Whitewater sports.

Though it is best to never tag only for the renderer, this XML file describes how OsmAnd currently renders nautical features.

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