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[nick56x]

I've read about it, and I've heard many conflicting things about it.

But regardless, I have an ocean within my land, and with no fresh water. I will be doomed if !!fun!! ever happens, and my Dorfs get wounded. What's the best way about channeling the Ocean and desalinating it so my Dwarves can drink it in case of !!fun!!, or even !!science!!, happens?

[Centigrade]

Double exclamation points surrounding a word indicate that word is on fire. I have yet to encounter a fiery sickness.

To answer your question, a screw pump will desalinate. Dig a cistern to hold the water, and pump your ocean water into your cistern. It will be fresh and remain so.

[origamiscienceguy]

If your area has an aquifer make sure your cistern never touches a layer of the aquifer or else all the water would turn salty again.

Another way to do it is to dig down to the second cavern layer and there is usually fresh water there.

[Thisfox]

As was stated above, only water which has passed through the pump will be salt free. And aquifer layers will be salty. And one drop of salty water makes ALL the water in the cistern salty.

Also, it is hard to tell whether the underground lakes (or any bodies of water) are in fact fresh when you already have access to salty water.

I tend to pump-fill my wells these days anyhow, just to "role play" cleaner water. Plus the dorfs seem to enjoy the challenge of pumping the cistern full. Just remember to tell them to stop....

[Reelya]

You could set up a single pressure plate in the top level of the cistern which opens the intake on less than 7/7 water. Combine with wind power for a sell-filling clean cistern (build this above ground as a water tower).

"Salt" seems to be a flag that's set on a tile, not the water itself. And when sections of salt and non-salt water touch they "mix" by having the "salt" flag set on all the non-salt tiles. This is why you can't unsalt water or dilute it, since it's not a variable amount of salt, it's a 1 bit salt-or-fresh flag on each tile itself. And similar to the "aboveground" tag, once the salt bit is set on a tile there is no mechanism for un-setting it, so removing the salt water and refilling with fresh won't fix this. For complete safety build a cistern above-ground with all-constructed tiles (raise off the ground by 1 level). This will ensure the cistern doesn't touch any tile that was ever marked as "salty". Some ground near the ocean may already have the salt flag, I forget exactly.

Pumps work for desalination, because they transport the water but don't set the salt flag on the output tiles. Buckets of water don't work because the bucket water can have the salt flag on it, and transmit it to a tile.

[NomeQueEuLembro]

Pump Screw + Windmill means constant flux of water, so beware the floods! I think you can use a floor hatch linked to a lever so you can turn it on/off according with your needs.

Alternatively you could dig to underground lakes. Keep in mind you can have more Fun trying to do that than using pump screws.


Important note: Do you realize that you don't really need water unless you have an injured dwarf, right? You should build a farm plot (b-p) and a still (b-w-l) to produce alcohol. Even a small 3x3 is enough for a starting fortress (provided you have enough seeds). Also, if you give water instead of alcohol for your dwarves they will slow down.

[pisskop]

Well dont use much water.  Pump a cistern full of decontaminated water into an 'upper' that you dont care if it gets infected.  Then, have your dwarves repump it at will from the safety of underground.