Another reason water was chosen was the idea that a crash into water would be more survivable than onto land

Yet another good reason for choosing water as your airfield was the lack of foot traffic.
Another aviation experimenter, Arthur Schaef of Wellington, New Zealand, found that when he tried out his aeroplane in the local park in 1910, children/dogs/ladies on bicycles congregated around and prevented him getting a good speedy run across the ground. He reasoned that such a problem could be avoided if he fitted floats and used the nearby harbour as his airfield.
His machine was still largely unsuccessful, but that could be blamed on the engineering processes involved.