Key:nwsr

nwsr=* specifies the status of a waterway or body of water under the National Wild and Scenic River System in the United States.

Background

National Wild and Scenic Rivers (NWSR) are linear federal protected areas, though their ownership may be a mix of private and public lands. Many NWSRs are well-signed and are promoted for recreation and tourism. Their bounds can be mapped with boundary=protected_area, but it is also useful to map NWSR status on river segments. This enables use cases like highlighting protected rivers on a waterway map or filtering by protection class when searching water trails.

How to map

There is a finite, well-defined set of National Wild and Scenic Rivers (though new designations are made over time). Rivers.gov is the central repository for NWSR information. The maps on this site are useful guides, but are sometimes incorrect or incomplete. You should map based on the waypoints given in the textual definitions in the U.S. Code.

Find the waterway=* feature in OpenStreetMap that corresponds to a given NWSR segment. Split it at the designation's boundary and add the appropriate nwsr=* tag. Include side streams around islands as well as main streams. You can also use the tag on natural=water area features that bound the designated waterways.

Note that while NWSRs generally do not include segments with dams or weirs, some do (such as the Housatonic). Many have upstream or downstream dams that affect natural water flow rates and levels.

Values

There are three levels of classification for NWSRs. You should map classes based on the legal definitions, not your own assessment. The classes indicate the general level of development along the segment, which is useful to data consumers. The class names do not imply their literal English meanings. The level of protection is the same regardless of the classification.

• nwsr=wild – little to no development, typically remote from human settlement (may or may not be "wild and wonderful")
• nwsr=scenic – moderate or intermittent development (may or may not be "scenic")
• nwsr=recreational – significant or constant development (may or may not be suitable for "recreation")

There are two other useful values:

• nwsr=yes – use only if you know a segment is designated but its classification is somehow ambiguous
• nwsr=no – optionally add to non-designated segments directly adjacent to designated segments to avoid ambiguity

Linking to Wikidata

There are Wikidata items for all NWSRs, defined as instances of Q846385 (for example Q35050632). You can add nwsr:wikidata=* on features to link them to their specific designations. This not only groups all segments of a designation together, but allows fetching additional data such as images and official websites.