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Underground sections of Streams

Should I draw in underground sections (50 meter or longer) as tunnel=culvert or just not map at all. Will the stream if mapped as tunnel=culvert then get rendered as a normal stream? If so it will look wrong. see other Q https://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/1181/should-i-map-underground-water-tunnels

underground stream

asked 08 Jun '12, 08:35

andy mackey
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accept rate: 4%

edited 08 Jun '12, 08:36

4 Answers:

I see three parts in your question:

should I map an underground stream ? If you like, yes. It is always interesting to represent a stream or any waterway from its source to its final destination. But if you don't map it, it's also okay.
what tag to use ? "waterway=stream" + "tunnel=yes" or "tunnel=culvert" (more accurate) + "layer=-1" (if you have some elements in OSM above the underground part of the stream)
is it rendered correctly ? This is a rendering issue which has to be handled separately. If you think that the rendered map is not reflecting what we recommend as tags, you should contact the responsibles of the map stylesheets.

answered 08 Jun '12, 08:55

Pieren
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accept rate: 15%

edited 08 Jun '12, 17:51

Tordanik
12.0k●15●106●147

You should describe the feature as best you can, using existing, well-used tags where possible. If this results in an odd rendering, this is a problem with that render, not your mapping. Indeed, if you omit detail like this because of an odd rendering result, the rendering will never get fixed because its developers won't have an example to work from.

So yes, map the stream in its culvert wherever possible.

answered 08 Jun '12, 08:53

Jonathan Ben...
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accept rate: 18%

I d agree with Jonathan, map them if possible. A watertransport system is easy, a kind of straight line. But how do you know where a undergroundstream is goiing over a certain distance ? Has it properly been pointed to a series of locations ?

answered 08 Jun '12, 21:11

Hendrikklaas
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accept rate: 5%

good point, but in this case I remember the straight canalised brook when it was open

(08 Jun '12, 22:07) andy mackey

Yes

it is always interesting to represent a stream or any waterway [or any way] from its source to its final destination

but I mean that as a whole way rather than add just another relation because of segmentation by a few culverts or bridges.
So, why not draw culverts, bridges, or any interruption, as additional ways? Ways that use the same nodes as the mainstream to indicate the relation, of course.
And well, this does represents reality. A culvert is not the stream, really. It's something around it. Same for a bridge, sort of, it's concrete supporting the same tarmac as the main road ;-)
Now, even if rendering has to be fixed because of what I'm doing, I prefer coping with it right now ;-)
Streams are usually wholly at layer -1 because they're not tsunamis.
Let's put them at level -2 and draw culverts at level -1. The culverts are going to hide the stream. But shouldn't bridges, be at level +1 as a rendering issue instead of a reality -1?

How does that sound to you?

answered 14 Jun '12, 17:54

GentilPapou
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accept rate: 0%