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[Urist Imiknorris]

I have a question about aquifers, and a surprisingly simple and dwarfy way to breach them.

The question:

Does an {aquiferlayer} floor leak? Meaning that if I dig out a tile of {aquiferlayer}, will the floor produce water on the z-level below?

The Idea:

Simply dig out the whole goddamn thing.

(I'm asking the question because the aquifer on my map is my only sand source.)

[Astramancer]

The floor itself doesn't leak.  The unmined and unsmoothed walls leak, and the walls leak from the bottom, too (if you dig under an aquifer, the shaft will fill with water, even though none of it is on the same layer as the aquifer itself).

I do believe that mined out aquifer (i.e. floors) don't leak below them, I'm pretty sure it's just unmined walls.  I'm willing to bet smoothed aquifer will still leak below.

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Channeling out the whole aquifer is a viable way of killing it, assuming that the entirety of the aquifer is on the map (since you can't channel/mine out edge tiles), and you have some way of getting rid of the positively gigantic lake you'll end up with.  And then do it again if it's a double-aquifer layer.

For that much work, you might as well use the cavein method.  (which drops enough non-aquifer soil/rock into the lake you channeled out to block off the walls and dig stairs in the middle)

[wagawaga]

digging out a big are could be good way, then you would need some craploads of pumps to keep the area dry while an engraver takes care of smoothing everything.

Unmined walls do leak under them, I'm pretty sure.
Once I found a damp wall, and thinking that it was fault of the above aquifier, and that aquifier don't leak under, I smoothed everything. Water came down anyway.

[Martin]

Well, I've done what you describe as part of the DFM2 challenge. It was a dual-layer aquifer spread over 3 z-levels (some places had a 3-deep aquifer). With magma on the map, I created two obsidian walls by dumping magma into the exposed aquifer on the perimeter of the map and on the interior of the map surrounding the magma pipe. This created a 'bathtub' allowing me to channel out the aquifer tiles and drain them into the aquifer level below. I repeated the process 2 more times, draining the final bit of water by evaporation over a large area.

I used a variety of channeling techniques - some were faster than others. I documented that here: http://dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/User:Martin#Large_scale_aquifer_removal_technique.

The map is here: http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-7052-muckgrotto-martin
The challenge is here where you can see the original map and stuff: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=40581.0

And yes, digging a room directly under an aquifer layer will cause it to fill with water. You need a solid z-level below any aquifer levels. You can see that too in my map.

[ChairmanPoo]

digging out a big are could be good way, then you would need some craploads of pumps to keep the area dry while an engraver takes care of smoothing everything.

It's easier than it sounds, as long as you have enough dwaves/pump raw materials, as you can lead those pumps into adjacent aquifer tiles. You can even manage to keep this up long enough to build walls, in case you are digging in sand. It's advisable not to dig too deep, though, as you can then have troubles with the dwarves slipping down to the lower tiles repeatedly (and they do drown sometimes). Dont dig another layer until you have secured the first one.