Talk:Tag:man made=embankment

Cutting

What about the opposite where a road etc is dug down, or rock blasted away to make a sort of narrow man-made valley ? MortenLange (talk) 21:51, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

See Key:cutting --Klumbumbus (talk) 21:57, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Yup, thanks. I saw that some minutes later and thought I indicated it here, but somehow that edit failed :-) MortenLange (talk) 14:23, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Area

Shouldn't man_made=embankment be valid also for areas ()? --NonnEmilia (talk) 09:10, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

The short answer is NO --geozeisig (talk) 06:11, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

LoL. Where I can read about a long answer?

The question is: how can we tag a wide and complex embankment/levee (with many levels and a lot of different features on it like roads, paths, cycleways, benchs, ...)?

I'm talking about the complex levee system (riverbanks for flood control) along the Po river[1]. --NonnEmilia (talk) 07:59, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Use man_made=embankment on a way where the cliff is. It is not so good to use a closeway because it will not be rendert. My be an examble is here --geozeisig (talk) 10:39, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Now it's rendered. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/507360111 for example. I still fail to see why it can't be used on areas. --naoliv (talk) 18:46, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Maybe you have to check the right direction.--geozeisig (talk) 07:34, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

"Maybe you have to check the right directio" - I do not understand at all what you posted Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:45, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

We have clockwise ways https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/507360115 and anti-clockwise ways https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/507360111 They are both closed and rendered. We also have +6000 closed ways with embankment=yes or man_mane=embankment and I still fail to see any valid reason to disallow the usage on closed ways. --naoliv (talk) 10:54, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

In my interpretation https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/507360111 is a line, just closed one Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 09:45, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Makes sense, indeed --naoliv (talk) 11:06, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

You may call it closed way but I think it can be also interpreted as an area and this is exactly what OP wanted to do as an area. So maybe there is some misunderstanding. Also this example demonstrates that the closed line obviously is rendered.. and if it isn't in some renderer it should be. RicoZ (talk) 20:31, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

It's rendered as a linear feature. Almost all lines, like railways and roads, can be drawn as closed ways when they make a circle, but that does not mean they should be interpreted as areas. --Jeisenbe (talk) 23:31, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Correct. In this case there's the area=yes tag. It was created to distinguish a closed way from an area because both are drawn the same.
So a closed line with man_made=embankment and area=yes could be acceptable? --NonnEmilia (talk) 07:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

You could do this, but it is less helpful than you would think for database users, since closed ways can still be ambiguous when a tag is allowed to represent both an area and a linear feature. I don't see the benefit from considering an embankment an area. It's well-defined as a linear feature with the high ground on the left-hand side and the low ground on the right-hand side. If you really wanted to map the whole area of a levee or dike, they you would probably want to include the slopes on each side, right? In that case, it doesn't work to use man_made=embankment, because this tag is already defined as describing the high side of the embankment, not the low side. Perhaps you could try a new tag like "area:man_made=embankment" or "area:man_made=dyke" (depending on the feature) which can be used for this purpose? --Jeisenbe (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Still wondering which area OP wanted to map:

• the area delimited by an embankment on all sides - this is already possible with a circular way and doesn't need area tag
• the area of the sloped terrain, the embankment itself - because of the directionality of man_made=embankment afaics you can't do that, there is an upper and a lower end of the embankment which can't be represented like this. RicoZ (talk) 17:14, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

What's the status for areas in 2023?

• Main article says "This tag may be used on open ways (open polylines) way as well as closed ways closed way (closed polylines)."
• But "infocard" on the right restricts areas, and also JOSM says it's not applicable.--UrSuS (talk) 06:54, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Earth walls / barriers

Previous discussion: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Key:barrier#soil_barrier_.2F_Earth_Wall.3F

I want to ensure that this specific feature is better documented in the wiki since there doesn't appears to be clear consensus how these "barriers" should be mapped. They are 100% barriers to keep people out / animals in and are usually formed using soil from the immediate area. In Ireland (and other parts of the world) they can be found faced with local stone too.

Current guidance (and support in editors) pushes map editors in the direction of man_made=embankment and embankment=yes but the relevant wiki pages are almost solely focused on embankments used in transportation (roads, railways).

Questions:

• Is the guidance above correct?
• Are additional tags appropriate (height=*, etc)?
• What changes are needed to the relevant wiki pages to improve them?

--Dónal (talk) 12:17, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

As sound barrier

Can I use this to map a sound barrier between a large road and residental area? I'm a bit unsure whether an "embankment" need to have a road or railroad on top of it, or if it just can be a low and very wide man-made hill. --Christoffre (talk) 10:22, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Definition right now seems to very clearly include such use, and I can confirm that it is also used in this way @Christoffre: Mateusz Konieczny (talk) 13:25, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Mateusz Konieczny Christoffre (talk) 11:44, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Actual usage

The section Actual usage, ambiguity and controversy" has nothing on actual usage! I think from the discussions emerges that actual usage is for the main part to map the top line of a man-made embankment slope, which is compatible with the current wiki text. I think it is hard to give numbers or percentages for different usage, e.g. based on older versions of this wiki text, or because of lack of a better altenative. Still, maybe some estimated statistics are available somewhere.

Man-made or Natural?

I'm currently mapping a small area that used to a garbage dump 40–60 years ago. Today it is mainly a forest, but also a ski slope and recreational area.

The steep earth banks here look all natural. But with my knowledge about the local history they are obvious old man-made garbage piles. Thus, I have mapped them as man_made=embankment. But according to the policy "map what is on the ground" I should actually have mapped them as natural=earth_bank, as that is what they look like.

What is proper? Embankment or Earth Bank? –Christoffre (talk) 22:37, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

A proper key for this area may be Tag:man_made=spoil_heap or abandoned:landuse=landfill, I think.--ManakaAo (talk) 02:18, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd agree with ManakaAo about using a lifecycle prefix for mapping the area as abandoned:landuse=landfill to convey that aspect. From your description I'd add natural=earth_bank to the edges, just like I add natural=cliff to historic quarries around me. --TrekClimbing (talk) 06:21, 23 April 2023 (UTC)