Samaná Water Layer Design: reading a karst landscape before anything gets built.
A LiDAR-based terrain and water systems analysis for a 20-hectare regenerative land project on the Samaná Peninsula, Dominican Republic, where complex karst geology made water the decisive design question.
Brought in as the technical analysis partner within a larger integrated site design process, Regenerates developed the terrain and water layer for the project. The work translated high-resolution LiDAR, slope analysis, basin delineation, flow accumulation, and karst-informed hydrological interpretation into 24 located water interventions, sequenced by confidence level, cascade position, and implementation phase.
On karst, water does not behave the way a surface map suggests.
The site sits on karstic limestone in the Haitises biome, one of the wettest regions in the Caribbean. Across 20 hectares, the land drops roughly 108 meters, with Atlantic rainfall moving across steep slopes, degraded cattle-grazing areas, active erosion gullies, and an access road already functioning like a drainage channel.
Karst is what makes the site difficult. Beneath the surface, fractures, dissolution channels, and swallets can move water underground in ways a terrain model cannot see. A depression that looks like an ideal pond location from above may hold water, or it may drain rapidly into the subsurface.
The project needed a water design rigorous enough to guide real decisions, but careful enough not to overclaim what remote analysis can resolve. The task was to read the land deeply, identify where water could be slowed, spread, stored, or redirected, and make clear which interventions could move forward and which needed field verification first.
Build the terrain model, read the water, then design the cascade.
The work moved from high-resolution LiDAR analysis to hydrological interpretation, then into a located and sequenced water layer design that could inform the wider site planning process.
LiDAR terrain modeling
Processed client-provided LiDAR into a 0.5 m digital terrain model in QGIS, deriving elevation, slope, hillshade, and flow accumulation layers.
Basin delineation and cascade mapping
Delineated 15 drainage basins and mapped how water moves from headwaters through mid-slope areas toward lowlands and road boundaries.
Water harvesting assessment
Estimated harvestable water volumes by basin across multiple analytical scenarios, distinguishing on-site generation from upstream or external contributing flows.
Karst-informed hydrological reading
Interpreted likely dolines, swallets, groundwater connections, erosion features, boundary losses, and humid-forest water functions that terrain analysis alone cannot resolve.
Water layer design
Located 24 interventions around one core logic: catch high, slow the middle, protect the low, and defend the road.
Implementation sequencing and field verification
Organized interventions into confidence tiers and construction phases, with a field-verification protocol to guide what could be built immediately and what needed checking first.
The terrain, the basins, the flow, and the design they produced.
Selected material from the terrain and hydrological analysis, including elevation, slope, basin delineation, cascade hierarchy, flow accumulation, water harvesting potential, and the located water interventions.
A technical reading of the land, and a water design the team can build from.
Analysis, design, and stewardship outputs that gave the wider project team a clear terrain and water framework for future site decisions.
Terrain model and basin delineation
A 0.5 m digital terrain model and 15-basin delineation establishing the site’s cascade hierarchy.
Water harvesting assessment
A per-basin assessment of harvestable water potential across multiple scenarios.
Karst-informed hydrological assessment
A reading of surface and subsurface water behavior, including pond candidates, dolines, swallet risk, erosion features, and field-verification priorities.
Water layer design
A spatially resolved design of 24 interventions organized by basin, cascade position, construction method, and implementation tier.
Phased implementation framework
A four-phase construction roadmap following the cascade sequence, with machinery considerations and field-verification requirements.
Landscape literacy guide
A practical guide to help the land team read erosion features, karst signals, and water behavior after rainfall.
From technical analysis to buildable water strategy.
A construction roadmap, not just a study.
The team received 24 located interventions sequenced into four phases, allowing work to begin high in the landscape and move down the cascade.
Confidence about what can proceed now.
The tiered structure separates interventions that can move forward from those dependent on field verification of karst behavior.
Costly mistakes avoided.
The analysis flagged where apparent pond sites may fail, where road-edge drainage needed protection, and why certain interventions should wait until upstream work is complete.
A gravity-fed irrigation opportunity identified.
A mid-cascade pond candidate was identified high enough above the crop zone to potentially support gravity-fed irrigation, pending field verification.
A foundation for later design phases.
The terrain model, basin hierarchy, and water layer design give future site planning a shared analytical base.
A team better able to read the land.
The landscape literacy guide supports ongoing observation, stewardship, and adaptation after rainfall events.
Good land design starts with reading the system, not imposing on it.
Most site plans treat water as something to manage after roads, buildings, crops, and tourism infrastructure have already been imagined. On a karst landscape, that sequence is backwards. Water, including the places where it disappears underground, determines what the land can safely hold in the first place.
The value of this work was not only designing water interventions. It was building the land intelligence needed before design decisions become expensive: terrain, slope, basins, flow, erosion, harvesting potential, subsurface uncertainty, and implementation sequence, brought together into one practical water layer. Just as importantly, the work made clear where remote analysis ends and field verification has to begin.
The water layer was not a technical add-on. On this site, it was the layer that determines what the rest of the design can safely become.
By reading the land through LiDAR, GIS, hydrological modeling, and karst-informed interpretation, the work helped the wider design team understand where water moves, where it may disappear, where interventions can be built with confidence, and where the ground needs to be checked before committing to earthworks.
Start with the land you need to understand.
Start with one site, one terrain question, or one water system you need to understand before you build. We turn high-resolution land intelligence into design guidance that works with the landscape, and that is clear about what still needs checking on the ground.
Start a conversation: hello@regenerates.co