Talk:US Forest Service Data

From OpenStreetMap Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

I'm changing boundary=national_forest back to boundary=national_park, boundary=national_forest isn't widely used and is too U.S. specific. If we want to designated them as a specific type of national protected area we should use the boundary=protected_area scheme that seems to be gaining traction. I've added values for tagging national forests with it, boundary:type=protected area is what's been used in Canada to keep things rendering for now. Binary Alchemy 21:18, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem I see with this is that national forests are not national parks as the term is used in the US. They are considered a protected resource with commercial use and are managed by the US Dept of Agriculture, not the National Park Service. Refer to this description in wikipedia. Calling what the government manages as a "timber stand" or "rangeland" a "park" muddies the political issues considerably. I think we should remove boundary=national_park and stick with boundary=protected_area and protect_class=6 Brian Wilson (talk) 19:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Likewise for Wilderness Boundaries (i.e. the parts of the NF that are actually USFS-owned, are wooded, allow dispersed camping, etc.), should the tags be boundary=national_park, boundary:type=protected_area, or simply boundary=protected_area, differentiated from the NF boundary by the protect_class?
--Pkoby (talk) 23:08, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Current status of import?

What is the current status of importing the forest service data? Is anyone still working on it? I noticed that in the Nantahala National Forest, many of the trails are unmapped. Only the Appalachian Trail seemed complete. The forest service data set does include a shapefile covering hiking trails, and it seems both precise and with extensive metadata. How can I help support an import of this data? Vectro (talk) 01:18, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

This page is a mess!

I will update and rework this page extensively for clarity and to improve tracking and tagging of USFS data status in OSM. Stay tuned for more. Skunkman56 (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Mapping of National Forest Districts

This page is contradicting itself. Currently, there’s one section that advocates for mapping of Forest Service districts and tying them together using a super relation due to complex ownership boundaries not rendering on the default OSM layer. Another section calls for an end to this practice due to these jurisdiction boundaries changing with time, and the import status page supports this by citing the “one feature, one OSM element” rule. I’m in support of the latter for reasons stated above, and don’t think it’s wise to split up features as a means of working around rendering bugs. Additionally, super relations, while sometimes necessary, in my opinion only create more confusion and should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. And if mapping the districts was acceptable, what would we do with Forests that are rendering just fine as a single ownership boundary but have the potential to be divided? --Bhietsch (talk) 14:01, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Focusing the topic of this page towards USFS Data Sources

Give the other excellent sources for tagging and tracking, I propose removing tagging information and import status from this page to avoid duplication.

These are the other definitive and more up-to-date pages:

Tagging of U.S. Forest Service (USFS) areas: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Public_lands#U.S._Forest_Service

Tagging of U.S. Forest Service roads: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States_roads_tagging#National_Forest_Road_System

Status of importing the US Forest Service administrative units: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/United_States/Public_lands/Forest_Service

(Historical comment) Getting US Government Shapefiles Into OpenStreetMap

I've added the tools and steps I am using at: Getting US Government Shapefiles Into OpenStreetMap.

(Above added by rpmik)

(Historical comment) updates from User:Stevea

(Below added by user Stevea)

Using data at http://fsgeodata.fs.fed.us/vector/lsrs.php (noted at the top of this wiki page), I began uploading some of these data in late February 2013. My initial focus was on Los Padres National Forest (LPNF) on California's central coast, extending into the southern part of the state. First I added all of LPNF's ten wilderness areas. I next added multipolygons for LPNF itself (there are 26 total, including inner members). Of course, this required deleting (the often incorrect TIGER 2009) already-existing-in-OSM polygons for LPNF (and two of its ten wilderness areas), which was not easy. (DONE: February 22, 2013).

My plan is to add the other three National Forests in southern California: Angeles, Cleveland and San Bernardino, as well their wilderness areas. (DONE: February 27, 2013).

After central and southern California are done, completing the rest of USGS Region 5 (California) is next. The difficulty (as with many OSM imports) is to correctly delete the old USFS boundary data (if any), as they are several years old and in some cases wrong or missing with respect to inholdings and wilderness areas. Because the http://fsgeodata.fs.fed.us/vector/lsrs.php data are current (February 2013), and noting correct inholdings as extant with inner members of multipolygons, these data should supersede existing USFS boundary data (many of which do not contain any or correct wilderness boundaries as essential subset data). This import intends to update, include correct inholdings, getting both USFS and wilderness boundaries into OSM. So, it directly addresses rpmik's concerns above that northern California USFS boundaries (e.g. Mendocino, Shasta-Trinity, Klamath) are incorrect for inholdings and wilderness.

As of March 4, 2013, I reviewed a comparison of the recent federal data of Sequoia National Forest and a similar upload of June 2010 uploaded by nmixter. These have tags attribution=USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Region, USDA_region=05 id=12 (Sequoia, specifically) and source=www.fs.fed.us/r5/rsl/clearinghouse/gis-download.shtml but otherwise were so substantially close to identical that I left the June 2010 data intact. This makes me want to change my arbitrary geographic ordering from east to north, and skip ahead from Eastern California USFS forests (Sequoia, Inyo) directly to Northern Region 5 (Mendocino, Shasta-Trinity and Klamath...), as rpmik suggests.

The process I use includes open source tools to convert from USFS's shapefile-based NAD83 to WGS84 "native" .osm format, tips for editing the gigantic files (most data results are nationwide, and must be isolated to one forest or wilderness at a time, or JOSM may run out of memory), is ten steps long and documented. Contact me (Stevea) and I will be happy to send you this workflow.

Effective mid 2013, I will be pausing this import/upload to deal with some personal matters. I will update this page when I resume. (It is now late 2013, and I intend to get back to this project at some point. -- Stevea)

2014: an examination of landuse (forest) and natural (wood) tags on Region 5's National Forests (and a National Park or two) shows some inconsistencies. Sequoia NF now contains landuse=forest and Sequoia NP now does not. Tahoe NF is now set to landuse=forest where it was natural=wood. Other NFs (Klamath, Six Rivers, Trinity, Mendocino, Plumas, Tahoe, El Dorado, Stanislaus, Sierra) appear to be "correctly" set to landuse=forest, however Shasta NF is not. This may be because of the large (many dozens of square kilometers) presence of Mount Shasta, a volcano with glaciers, now characterized (within Tahoe NF itself) as an outer multipolygon of natural=fell with glaciers as inner members. It may be that OSM needs to better characterize distinctions between landuse and landcover to address such issues in National Forests, so the entire Tahoe NF multipolygon remains without a landuse tag. However, Inyo and Humboldt-Toiyabe appear to be more accurately tagged: while their multipolygon relations do not have a specific landuse tag (whether forest or another value), they also have additional subset areas within them more accurately tagged with natural=wood, which display as dark green in mapnik/Standard rendering. Strictly speaking, natural=wood is not correct and these should become landuse=forest (as they are within truly forest areas which could be timber-harvested). So, statewide (Region 5) review and correction continues, with the intention of the priorities listed above.

(Historical comment) Region 1 update by Kjordahl

Status: Working on a number of forest boundaries and wilderness areas in this region. Staging area on GitHub[2] --Kjordahl (talk) 20:27, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

(Historical comment) Region 2 update by Zytesef

Rocky Mountain Region (R2)

  • Website: http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/r2/landmanagement/gis (region-wide data as of 2016/1/22)
  • Status: Not sure how far AndyAyre got back in 2009. Wyoming is still missing many national forests
    • Black Hills: Looks complete to me.
    • Medicine Bow/Thunder Basin: Boundaries and wildernesses look complete to me, but private inholdings are missing.
    • Bighorn: Boundary looks complete, any private inholdings and Cloud Peak Wilderness are missing.
    • Shoshone: missing completely. [1]Zytsef (talk) 21:46, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

(Historical comment) Region 3 by AndyAyre

Southwestern Region (R3)

Name Relation Status
Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests relation 169768 Fix inholdings and wilderness areas

Wilderness areas should not be mapped as inner

Carson National Forest relation 171784 Some inholdings need to be added
Cibola National Forest and National Grasslands relation Cibola National Forest
relation Magdalena Ranger District (split between north, south and east)
relation Mountainair Ranger District (split between east and west)
relation Mt. Taylor Ranger District (split between east and west)
relation Sandia Ranger District (split between north and south)
relation Kiowa National Grassland
relation Rita Blanca National Grassland
relation Black Kettle National Grassland
 The relation ways should probably have an outer role instead of a subarea role

Fix inholdings

Coconino National Forest relation 10956348 Finished

Adding trail relations --Pwhite119 (talk) 18:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Coronado National Forest relation 166582 Fix inholdings and wilderness areas

Wilderness areas should not be mapped as inner

Gila National Forest relation 171010 Add inholdings
Kaibab National Forest relation 163123 Finished
Lincoln National Forest relation 171043 Add inholdings
Prescott National Forest relation 163124 Added (most) inholdings to western section.
Santa Fe National Forest relation 171053 Wilderness areas should not be mapped as inner, add inholdings
Tonto National Forest relation 169380 Add inholdings
  • Status:
    • Forest boundaries: finished (including grasslands and a national preserve)
    • Wilderness areas: finished
    • Trails:
      • Coronado National Forest: finished
      • [osm:relation/169768 Apache Sitgreaves National Forest]: finished Inholdings should not be part of relation as inner. This removes them from the NF.

--AndyAyre 19:42, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

(Historical comment) Region 4

Intermountain Region (R4)

(Historical comment) Region 5

Pacific Southwest Region (R5)
Name Notes
relation Angeles National Forest
relation Cleveland National Forest
relation Eldorado National Forest
relation Inyo National Forest
relation Klamath National Forest need to fix inholdings, wilderness areas
relation Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit
relation Lassen National Forest
relation Los Padres National Forest
relation Mendocino National Forest need to fix inholdings, wilderness areas
relation Modoc National Forest
relation Plumas National Forest
relation San Bernardino National Forest
relation Sequoia National Forest
relation Shasta National Forest
relation Trinity National Forest		 need to fix inholdings, wilderness areas
relation Sierra National Forest
relation Six Rivers National Forest Forest
relation Stanislaus National Forest
relation Tahoe National Forest

(Historical comment) Region 6

Pacific Northwest Region (R6)

Name (Forest#) Relation Notes
Colville National Forest (21) relation 5449320 Part of Colville National Forest is currently in Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest relation and needs to be moved.
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (22) relation 10291225
Crooked River National Grassland relation 1277103 Status: Grassland boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 17:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Deschutes National Forest (1) relation 1273909 Status: Forest boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 10:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Fremont–Winema National Forest (2) relation 1284002 Status: Forest boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 02:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Gifford Pinchot National Forest (3) relation 8162013
Malheur National Forest (4) relation 1358979 and relation 12926353 Status: Forest owned land boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 21:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Mount Baker–Snoqualmie National Forest (5) relation 1399218
Mount Hood National Forest (6) relation 1273908 Status: Forest boundary & private land insets imported --Binary Alchemy 10:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Ochoco National Forest (7) relation 1277104 Status: Forest boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 17:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest (17) relation 1447414 Contains part of Colville National Forest- needs to be updated
Olympic National Forest (9) relation 163767 Status: Upload forest boundaries (done) Began uploading Forest service trails --Tylerritchie 18:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest (10) relation 1274746 and relation 1274816 Status: Forest boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 08:31, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Siuslaw National Forest (12) relation 4654816 Cleanup of GNIS node node 357349314 needed
Umatilla National Forest (14) relation 1359070 relation 1359069 relation 1359068 Status: Forest owned land boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 21:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Umpqua National Forest (15) relation 1274081 Status: Forest boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 11:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Wallowa–Whitman National Forest (16) relation 1359025 and relation 1359059 Status: Cleanup of GNIS node still needed node 357320227 Forest owned land boundary imported --Binary Alchemy 21:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Willamette National Forest (18 relation 1273907 Status: Forest boundary & private land insets imported --Binary Alchemy 21:22, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

(Historical comment) Region 8

Southern Region (R8)===

Name (Forest#) Relation Notes
Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest (3) relation 7001522 Super-relation for 4 ranger districts**See: Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest **Website: [4] **Status: Trails uploaded --Liber 16:16, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Cherokee National Forest (4) relation 9454459 and relation 1396310 miscellaneous ways need to be joined into relation way 97047763
Daniel Boone National Forest (2) relation 11638316
El Yunque National Forest (16) numerous ways need to be combined into relation way 266490052, way 266490054, way 266490055, way 266490057, e.g.
Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests (12) relation 3746931 and relation 3746976 Separate relations for each proclaimed national forest, could use a super-relation. Updated to show ownership except for Andrew Pickens Ranger District **Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 16 May 2014
George Washington & Jefferson National Forest (8) relation 949040 super-relation for GW for 5 ranger districts, Jefferson has relation 949039 for Glenwood RD, relation 949039 for Great Divide RD, needs super-relation; **Status: Working on uploading trails -- Spesh 14:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
Kisatchie National Forest (6) relation 538663 **Status: Completed uploading park boundaries -- kepardue remaining GNIS node needs to be merged node 358386081
Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area (60) relation 6076065
National Forests in Alabama (1)
Conecuh National Forest relation 3500729 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Talladega National Forest relation 7281919 Super-relation for 3 ranger district relations***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Tuskegee National Forest relation 3500802 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
William B. Bankhead National Forest relation 3500982 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
National Forests in Florida (5)
Apalachicola National Forest relation 3499712 ***Status: Forest and wilderness boundaries imported --jrenglish 08 February 2014
Ocala National Forest relation 3499968 ***Status: Forest and wilderness boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Osceola National Forest relation 3499737 ***Status: Forest and wilderness boundaries imported --jrenglish 08 February 2014
National Forests in Mississippi (7)
Bienville National Forest relation 3501068 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
De Soto National Forest relation 3501971 ***Status: Forest and wilderness boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Delta National Forest relation 3501033 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Homochitto National Forest relation 3501091 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Holly Springs National Forest relation 3501025 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
Tombigbee National Forest relation 3501030 ***Status: Forest boundaries imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
National Forests in Texas (13)
Angelina National Forest relation 9287349
Davy Crockett National Forest relation 13611607
Sabine National Forest relation 8472117 GNIS node node 356752770 needs to be merged
Sam Houston National Forest exists as way 463190553, needs relation created, and GNIS node node 356752773 to be merged
Ouachita National Forest (9) relation 5325314 miscellaneous ways need "name" tag removed way 664105296, way 356985786, way 362662623
Ozark-Saint Francis National Forest (10) relation 9427008
Savannah River Site (36) relation 380802418 Department of Energy land managed by USFS Region 8

(Historical comment) Region 9

Eastern Region (R9)

Name Features Status
Allegheny National Forest relation 9952215 Forest and wilderness boundary imported --jrenglish 09 February 2014
USFS-Lands complete, replacing proclamation boundary. --Pkoby (talk) 02:06, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest relation Great Divide District
relation Lakewood-Laona District
relation Medford District
relation Park Falls Landbase
relation Washburn District		 These boundaries should probably be joined into one super-relation. Some of these may be from proclamation boundaries, not USFS lands.
Chippewa National Forest relation 4634099 This relation is one piece of many for this NF. They look to be derived from USFS lands, but should be part of a greater relation.
Green Mountain and Finger Lakes National Forests relation 2030450
relation 1610352
node 356555374		 Relation 2030450 looks like the proclamation boundary, 1610352 appears to be USFS land, and 356555374 seems to be deprecated by the others. The USFS website includes "Finger Lakes" in the name, and should be added to some or part of this.
Hiawatha National Forest relation 1976196
relation 1976195
node 353997930		 The two relations look like USFS land, the node is a holdover.
Hoosier National Forest relation 9347186
relation 8334776
node 358679184		 Relation 9347186 looks like the proclamation boundary, 8334776 seems like a disparate piece, and the node is a holdover.
Huron-Manistee National Forest relation Huron NF
relation Huron NF
way Huron NF
relation Manistee NF
node Manistee NF		 Relations and way are proclamation boundaries. Node is redundant. All areas should be added to super-relation of Huron-Manistee NF (single administrative area).
Mark Twain National Forest
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
Monongahela National Forest
Ottawa National Forest
Shawnee National Forest
Superior National Forest
Wayne National Forest relation 9951528 Complete, in three Unit relations, part of a super-relation. --Pkoby (talk) 22:02, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
White Mountain National Forest

(Historical comment) Region 10

Alaska Region (R10)

Name Features Status
Chugach National Forest relation 12180623 Work in progress, started 1/11/2021
Tongass National Forest relation 6535292
Retrieved from "https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:US_Forest_Service_Data&oldid=2363120"