Please render natural=shrubbery

[hungerburg]

Since hedges do not render as areas, cf. https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/3844, a limited but highly prolific number of people use natural=scrub to map, what are in my understanding mostly hedge-like features: barriers to keep pedestrians from taking shortcuts. See https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:natural=shrubbery for complete description and account of other use cases.

As of now, this custom is regionally limited, the Netherlande being a prime spot of exploding use: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:ScrubByNumbersNLvsAT.png shows a comparison with use in Austria. In Austria, like in most of the world, such "shrubberies" are not mapped at all, not the least maybe, because there exists (not until recently) no valid tagging for them.

As the trend to map micro features is expected to continue ever stronger, there will be demand for a tag to correctly map those "shrubberies". As the people doing such mappings are very sensitive to rendering, it is to be expected that they will not use the concise tag, but the one that renders.

Therefore my plea to render natural=shrubbery. Give the authors of the shrubbery proposals a chance of having created a successful tag. Apart from preventing the information loss by dilution of millions of currently concise mappings of actual scrub, I think also the cartographers work will be a little easier, if a tag, that starts rendering at z7 or so will not be used on perhaps even more millions of features, that range from closet sized to the size of a medium flat.

[hungerburg]

@OttoROSM From your reply to my post I cannot make out if you are fine with the use of the shrubbery tag for reforestation or not. In case its fine, I see no chance for shrubbery as that makes it kind of a kitchen sink, in case it is not fine, I'd recommend to reach out to the mapper(s) and try to clarify what went wrong.

Edit to Add to the Hidden: Reforestation is by definition landuse=forest. It can be natural=wood in case it is planted and trees dominate from the start, it can be natural=scrub for a while as long as scrubs, berries eg. dominate in case it is left on its own. I do not think it can ever be shrubbery, unless I am reading the description wrong.

[pelderson]

Not scrubbery, but shrubbery, i.e. an area of shrubs. Shrubs are not trees. Shrubbery can surround a tree, in that case map the tree in the shrubbery area. If there are many trees with shrubbery in between, it will probably get mapped as a landuse=forest or as natural=wood. Peter Elderson

Op ma 10 jul 2023 om 23:46 schreef Hungerburg @.***>:

@OttoROSM https://github.com/OttoROSM From your reply to my post I cannot make out if you are fine with the use of the scrubbery tag for reforestation or not. In case its fine, I see no chance for scrubbery as that makes it kind of a kitchen sink, in case it is not fine, I'd recommend to reach out to the mapper(s) and try to clarify what went wrong.

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[OttoROSM]

@imagico I saw your comment on heigth; personally I don't think this is necesarily something you would want to show in the layer. At least not on Carto. Differentiation in density could be usefull; especially to diferentiate between a 'box' style hedge that occupies a larger area vs a hedge used as a barrier and shrubbery used as urban greenery.

Again, the exact implementation of this tag in terms of visualisation; i am no expert in. I just find it odd that today it is not being rendered at all, where per your goals and gudielines; I do find merit in the differentiation between scrub (unmaintained wild undergrowth not being trees), shrubbery (properly maintained greenery not being gardens) and village greens (oddly English named centers of villages ;-), often having nothing to do with actual plants (asside from maybe a patch of grass))

[vincentvd1]

We render tags if and when (a) there is consensus among the maintainers that doing so is in support of our goals

Rendering shrubbery would comply with at least goal 2 (Being understandable and supportive for mappers) and 4 (A rich map). People now incorrectly use natural=scrub for areas that are clearly natural=shrubbery. They do this solely because scrub renders and shrubbery not. There are even Dutch mappers who said they use scrub because shrubbery does not render. And shrubbery is a common feature, especially in urban environments so rendering shrubbery would show the richness of the data in some cities.

At last, even the popular Organic maps app renders shrubbery. For pragmatic reasons, I asked them to simply render it the same as scrub. Carto could do the same. If the usage keeps growing, we can later decide to render if differently. Providing render support, increases usage and thus discussion about the tag. This allows for improvements in the definition.

[vincentvd1]

I did a small analysis of the current shrubbery use per country and continent

Some comments on this:

• There are a total of 24440 polygons with shrubbery. For the country table, I cut off countries with less then 10 shrubbery.
• In the Netherlands, we have detailed datasets and because of previous imports, we can focus a lot on micromapping like shrubbery.
• It is also known that western Europe is more detailed so it also makes sense that in that region, there is higher usage and will remain so.
• The usage in the USA is also not small given an unrendered tag. It accounts for 15% of all shrubbery.
• Again, for an unrendered tag, the overal usage is high and steadily growing.

Per country

<!DOCTYPE html>

Country | Count | Percentage -- | -- | -- Netherlands | 13016 | 53.257 United States of America | 3622 | 14.82 Germany | 1387 | 5.675 Belgium | 1099 | 4.497 Poland | 872 | 3.568 U.K. of Great Britain and Northern Ireland | 735 | 3.007 France | 690 | 2.823 Sweden | 470 | 1.923 Russian Federation | 329 | 1.346 China | 323 | 1.322   | 229 | 0.937 Indonesia | 197 | 0.806 Denmark | 172 | 0.704 Canada | 123 | 0.503 Italy | 121 | 0.495 Austria | 118 | 0.483 Iran (Islamic Republic of) | 92 | 0.376 Switzerland | 90 | 0.368 Australia | 88 | 0.36 Finland | 67 | 0.274 Philippines | 63 | 0.258 Hungary | 59 | 0.241 Hong Kong | 48 | 0.196 New Zealand | 41 | 0.168 Spain | 40 | 0.164 Mexico | 33 | 0.135 Latvia | 31 | 0.127 Luxembourg | 30 | 0.123 Czech Republic | 29 | 0.119 Ukraine | 21 | 0.086 Slovakia | 19 | 0.078 Norway | 19 | 0.078 Democratic People's Republic of Korea | 17 | 0.07 Republic of Korea | 16 | 0.065 Djibouti | 15 | 0.061 Japan | 13 | 0.053 South Africa | 10 | 0.041 Slovenia | 10 | 0.041 Portugal | 10 | 0.041 Israel | 10 | 0.041

Per continent

<!DOCTYPE html>

continent | count | Percentage -- | -- | -- Europe | 19447 | 79.57 Africa | 52 | 0.213 Oceania | 130 | 0.532 Americas | 3781 | 15.471 Asia | 801 | 3.277   | 229 | 0.937

[hungerburg]

use per country

With three (3) taggings I am above median - https://overpass-turbo.eu/s/1yxG - in Austria.

UPDATE: Mind you, this gives the users that were the last to touch an entity with that tag. That may be different from the ones that set the tag. It is not possible - I think - to get the number of users that first added the tag. Although the query can be modified to only return entities that are still in initial state way["natural"="shrubbery"](area.searchArea)(if:version()==1); but that omits retaggings too.

[vincentvd1]

Ow, thanks for that overpass code. Didn't know that was possible. So, a further analysis then.

• In total 662 Used shrubbery 1 or more times.
• The average use per person is 36 with 191 people who used it more then 10 times.

Analysis on spatial usage:

• The image below clearly shows more usage in Europe and Northen America. This is ofcourse to be expected.
• If you zoom in on the areas in Europe and the USA, you can spot the cities and villages based on the cluster of points. This means that shrubbery is predominately used in urban areas. This is quite an accomplishment for an unrendered tag.
• I see that in Africa, shrubbery is used where it clearly should be scrub. I will try to correct the clearly wrong use there. The incorrect usage seems to be just by a single user. But small mistakes are expected and every tag has them. Overall, the usage seems correct.

In conclusion, I don't see why it cannot be rendered. Overall, the usage seems correct. A very pragmatic solution would be to render it the same as natural=scrub and change it later (or not) if the usage grows. Adding render support will increase the usage for sure.

[OttoROSM]

This tag is currently only used in the Netherlands, England and a couple other spots. It needs to be much more widely used before it could be rendered here:

I believe we should close this issue for now, but it could be reopened in a year or two if the situation has changed and the tag has been widel adopted by mappers in many countries.

Seems well time to reopen and implement.

[vincentvd1]

@imagico Is there an objection to render it the same as natural=scrub? Shrubbery has been used 33.000+ times now and even popular renderers like Organic maps, openmaptiles and Tracetrack Topo render it from which I conclude it is popular enough already. Rendering it the same as natural=scrub seems like a good solution for now. In the future, the rendering can be adjusted if needed.

[imagico]

Standing decision is not to render this. Any new arguments on that matter are welcome of course.

On the hypothetical question of how we could proceed on rendering this in the current de facto meaning if we should think it is advisable to do so i commented a bit in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1562652468. But as said there - this is purely hypothetical - tags do not tend to widen in use substantially without a change in meaning.

Current use numbers: Global: 34030, Netherlands: 19619 (that means increase in the dominance of the NL from 53% reported in https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/4473#issuecomment-1666555138 to 58%) Also over-proportionally increasing seems to be the use in Flanders and Brussels (whole of Belgium 1646 uses - 4.8% from 4.5%).

As a frame of reference: During the same period of four months the use of other tags overlapping in de facto meaning with natural=shrubbery have increased by:

• natural=scrub: 150k
• barrier=hedge: 120k
• leisure=garden: 50k
• natural=heath: 17k
• natural=shrub: 12k

[pelderson]

how we could proceed on rendering this

A green colour like natural=wood or leisure=garden would do nicely for these mostly small areas of maintained shrubs. The tag is quite popular, despite not being rendered on OSM Carto.

[OttoROSM]

Standing decision is not to render this. Any new arguments on that matter are welcome of course.

As a frame of reference: During the same period of four months the use of other tags overlapping in de facto meaning with natural=shrubbery have increased by:

• natural=scrub: 150k rendered
• barrier=hedge: 120k rendered
• leisure=garden: 50k rendered
• 'natural=shrubbery': 34k not rendered
• natural=heath: 17k rendered
• natural=shrub: 12k rendered

You render Forest and trees, heath and shrub but not shrubbery. It's is just being inconsistent.

The point for Shrubbery is that it is something different as srcub, garden or heath. And although a hedge can be used as a barrier; not all hedges are barriers. and those that are more often than not are an area as opposed to a line.

A shrub is a woody plant that is smaller than a tree and has multiple stems or trunks. Shrubs can range in size from a few inches to several feet tall and can be evergreen or deciduous. They are often used in landscaping for their ornamental value and can provide privacy or serve as a hedge. Some common examples of shrubs include roses, azaleas, and boxwoods. A collection of shrub together is shrubbery.

Scrub refers to a type of vegetation that is characterized by short, stunted trees or bushes that are usually found in arid or semi-arid regions. Scrub vegetation is often sparse and can consist of a mix of woody and herbaceous plants. It is typically found in areas with poor soil quality and little rainfall. Scrub vegetation can provide habitat for a variety of animals, including reptiles, birds, and small mammals.

They are not synonyms and scrub should not be confused with bushes and scrub is typical for dry or arid / desert type of regions. Not as landscaping in rural areas; which would be shrubbery. And of lower quality than what would be classified as a garden. (although shrubs and lesser so scrub could be used in a garden design)

[maro-21]

I support the idea!

The tag is already used 40,000 times and its usage is growing exponentially. https://taghistory.raifer.tech/#***/natural/shrubbery

[hungerburg]

40k is not bad for a tag-as-you-like tag. The hockey stick though is mostly a trick of the zoom level you are looking at the data, try changing window size.

Curiously, within Europe, it is mostly used in Spain? https://dashboard.ohsome.org/#backend=ohsomeApi&groupBy=boundary&time=2021-03-01T00%3A00%3A00Z%2F2024-03-19T14%3A00Z%2FP1M&key=natural&value=shrubbery&types=way&measure=area&adminids=-2323309%2C-52411%2C-2202162%2C-51477%2C-51701%2C-365331%2C-16239%2C-51684%2C-62149%2C-49715%2C-62273%2C-1311341%2C-295480%2C-50046%2C-52822%2C-2978650%2C-54224%2C-79510%2C-72594%2C-72596%2C-59065%2C-60199%2C-14296%2C-21335%2C-58974%2C-90689%2C-214885%2C-218657%2C-1741311%2C-186382%2C-192307%2C-53293%2C-53292%2C-2528142%2C-53296%2C-2088990

UPDATE: There must be an error in ohsome dashboard: It counts 65 uses, total length 24m, perimeter 31km and area 21.6km² - Cannot work out.

UPDATE2: Seems ohsome is not good a calculating the area of not-closed-ways such as https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/598546589 where the shrubbery perhaps rather tagged hedge?

UPDATE3: ohsome workers 24/7, https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/32487192/history is the culprit.

[maro-21]

Not surprisingly, a tag is used more often in Western Europe - there are the most active users there.