I am looking to use this terrain and create a large bridge that brings the player to another island where there will be a large Edo Period/Samurai era province with a military station behind it.
Think of it like “City of Boston” but an entirely different era.
Well what I meant was that the banks are a bit too smooth, I’m saying make the terrain holding the water more rough. And also making the water darker helps also
I’d say adding some more rocky parts to the banks and making them less smooth would be a good first thing you could do. Also, your terrain on the whole looks pretty flat, so you could try to make some parts of your environment on a slight incline or decline, or just some small hills or ditches will do the trick.