Proposal talk:Hiking water source
Untitled
let's talk :)
- I see you point, and I think the proposal needs some more reasoning. To begin with, tag "natural=water_source" has not been used once so far (see taginfo), and it would break the logic of natural=. At the same time, it does not seem to be suitable to your purpose, as many water sources will not be natural but rather a fountain, watering place, irrigation canal etc.
- "Hiking water" may also not be the best wording, as this water could also be used by cyclists, mountaineers, riders to name a few. It would probably be better to use a tag describing the water, not its potential use.
- I am not sure why this tag would be needed. Water sources are tagged as such or can be easily identified (natural=water/spring, amenity=fountain/watering_place/water_point/drinking_water, man_made=water_well/spring_box/water_tap ...), and after adequate processing, water from any of these sources can be drunk. Also, the existing sub-tagging schemes of drinking_water=conditional/boil/untreated ... and drinking_water:legal= seem to be fine to achieve what you want.
- Finally, it may also be a bit risky to have OSM declare a water source as suitable for drinking "if you are hiking", or after processing. The processing has to be adequate. Boiling or chemical treatmentmay will not remove toxic substances, and filters can only filter so much and many fail removing all biological hazards by their very design. There may also be questions of accountability. --ChillyDL (talk)
- I fully agree with all the points @ChillyDL makes. --Peter Elderson (talk) 23:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
- Me too --Pyrog (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
- Me too, there is no such thing as "hiking water", it is just water and available to everybody in search of it. There are also a plethora of established water related tags, so my suggestion would be, in case there is the perception that some water sources cannot be described adequately with the currently established tagging, to think about these specific properties, how to integrate them with established tagging and represent them in the database. --Dieterdreist (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, but fundamentally you missed the inherent problem. This proposal is simply looking for informal=yes for the meaning, so it could be drinking_water:informal=yes .
That being said, there are yet some unclear aspects in the related drinking_water:legal=* . It seems to be confusing between status of official approval, and whether you are allowed to drink it legally. Other questions in Key:drinking_water:legal demonstrates this, where *=discouraged is akin drinking_water:legal=no + access=discouraged , while access=private would mostly be drinking_water:legal=yes for being officially approved and legally established.
—— Kovposch (talk) 05:20, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
Overlaps and reinventions
On top of the the above, I will specify the problems in detail
- natural=water_source : Conflicts with natural=water for the area of waterbody, and natural=spring points. For the position where you can access and obtain water from a waterbody, overlaps with amenity=drinking_water . As aforementioned, informal=yes already works.
hiking_water_source: "HIking" isn't needed, as it can be used for other purposes. It doesn't describe the situation accurately either. Managed water supply are still "hiking water sources". Would be eg "wild"- *:type=* : Meaningless *:type=* suffix, and there exists water_source=* from other purposes
- *:treatment_needed=* : Existing drinking_water=treated , drinking_water=untreated , drinking_water=boil . Also "treatment needed" is different from "treated". Some untreated water may be clean enough, so treatment not needed.
- *:flow=* : Existing drinking_water:seasonal=* . Unclear wording against flow_rate=* . It seems this can be used for eg whether the water is standing, or flowing.
- *:capacity=* : Format conflicts with capacity=* . Unclear, and subjective.
—— Kovposch (talk) 05:31, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
Subjectivity
I think this proposal wants to mark places suitable for reffiling your bottle, including wild streams. The question is, should that be tagged at all in addition to waterways? It is subjective. Does it make sense to add to a node on a waterway where it crosses with a highway=path drinking_water=yes and informal=yes? I do not think it is a great idea but I have no strong opinions about it, really. I voiced similar objections to others here: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/proposal-for-tagging-scheme-for-hiking-water-sources/119662/2 Supsup (talk) 11:15, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
- Places to refill your bottle, not including wild streams, already have a tagging, at least someone tried to implement one a few years ago. Generally, you should not drink untreated surface water unless you are in an emergency. --Dieterdreist (talk) 12:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
- you can find the tag here (and pointers to similar tags of the scheme) drinking_water:refill=*, this is the proposal: [1] —Dieterdreist (talk) 15:24, 9 October 2024 (UTC)
Overpass demo of the current taggings' potential
As a quick example of what is possible with the current data, here is an Overpass query for your sample area around Muir Pass, returning all waterway nodes closer than 20 m to paths, as well as springs, fountains, watering places and official sources of drinking water. It can be tweaked e.g. to include further water sources, to not return intermittent sources, or regarding the distance between path and water source. --ChillyDL (talk) 20:57, 4 October 2024 (UTC)