OpenStreetMap
Mapping Land Use in major land tenures in British Columbia
Posted by Robert Copithorne on 25 February 2019 in English.Monday Feb 25, 2019 My concern is that large areas of predominately forest land in rural B.C. have not been adequately dealt with in terms of Land Use. In B.C.and in the particular area that is my concern, all of the land base has been allocated. Some has been acquired as private land, some as institutional land, and large portion licenced for Managed Forest use, under Tree Farm Licences. In addition, large portions of private land have been categorized as Tree Farms with significant tax advantages, in return for which the land is to be managed using sound forestry principles, similar to those required for Tree Farm Licences..
These previously untouched forest lands have been managed as industrial forest lands, and many of these lands are only accessible through roads that are classified as Industrial Roads.
The extent of industrial activity on these lands is visible from the roads, and very easy to see on the aerial photos, e.g Bing aerial imagery or Mapbox Satellite photos.
The net result of my mapping activities is to have large watershed base units categorized as natural=wood, with specific areas that have subject to industrial activity, i.e. harvesting, also categorized as landuse=industrial and industrial=forest.
In this way, both the vegetation and the land use reflect most closely the actual situation for both specific areas, and large areas. Land use and Natural classifications can coexist without conflict.
To look at a sample of how these two classifications can coexist without conflict, see the following area (or follow the location below): https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=49.4090&mlon=-125.0980#map=14/49.4090/-125.0980
My overriding concern is that large areas are being depicted as natural areas, without adequate notice being taken of the effects of industrial activities - road building, harvesting, regeneration and second growth stand management, that are changing the face of the landscape.
I would appreciate any comments on this particular issue.
Discussion
Comment from Warin61 on 25 February 2019 at 23:29
Hi,
The wiki page https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Forest covers the controversy of tagging ‘trees’ in OSM
Some take the view that ‘natural=wood’ is only for non human effected trees from the word ‘natural’. Some take the view that the area is of some size due to the word ‘wood’. So they use the tag ‘landuse=forest’ for all other occurrences.
Some take the view that ‘landuse=forest’ is for any tree are that is in some way ‘managed’. It may have had a dead tree removed 50 years ago and thus they classify it as ‘managed’.
My view? # natural The key ‘natural’ is taken for both ‘natural’ things and things ‘ that are effected by humans’ (thus unnatural) So this key conveys no meaning in the word used. It would be better to replace it with what it does mean, there are two meanings, land cover and land form.
landuse
The wiki is quite clear .. this is the use of the land for humans. The tag ‘landuse=forest’ is polluted and cannot be relied on for its original intention.
managed
What do that mean? There is no OSM definition, mappers use that word to mean different things. Result = confusion. Don’t use the word … say what you mean.
Where to from here?
There are many possible solutions and ideas.
One is to abandon landuse=forest. Replace it all with ‘natural=wood’.
Then those who know that the land is used to produce produce from the trees might use landuse=forestry, with produce=timber/oil/*. Those who use landuse=forestry with out a produce key may find the entry changed to natural=wood! A suggestion is that natural=wood be retained for rendering with landuse=forestry has been suggested.
Another idea is to replace the key ‘natural’.
As for the presence of trees in an area where the produce is timber? From time to time some areas will have no trees (harvested), baby trees, fully grown trees, partial tree reduction, etc. OSM does not track the state of a farmers field, so I don’t track the state of a forestry area. You can if you want .. but I don’t see much point as there is enough to do without tracking the tree status.
Comment from LeifRasmussen on 1 March 2019 at 13:23
I like this idea a lot. In my opinion, the best solution is to use
natural=woodon all tree cover, and then usemanaged=yes/no/scientific/*to state whether the wood is managed.