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[johnny_cat]

The map I'm on doesn't have any water laying around except in a couple murky pools. The cavern is dry, and my miners haven't been able to find the aquifer, even though the embark screen said there'd be one. It does rain a lot, so I'm thinking I could collect some rainwater somehow. Is it possible to do this in a way that will result in a meaningful amount of water?

[Darkmere]

Sure, but the only thing rain actually fills up are the tiles at the bottom of murky pools, that are labeled murky pool when looked at. Dig a cistern underground, connect it to a murky pool (with floodgate or something just in case) and drain the pools underground when they're full. Depending on rainfall it might take a while but you'll store as much as you need as long as it keeps raining.

[Girlinhat]

It doesn't rain fast enough to fill a murky pool that's been breached.  You need to remove one wall tile of the pool, replace it with a floodgate, and wait for the pool to fill a bit before opening the gate and letting it drain into a lower-level cistern.  I've also heard that pumps will multiply a given fluid, so it may be possible to create an infinite water reactor by carefully controlling pressure and water levels, and to let the excess water flow out into a cistern/mist generator/drowning trap.

[Montague]

Yeah, it flood the tiles of murky pools.

I found this out tragically when I drained two of them and built my aboveground fortress entrance between them.

Darkmere has it right. You could even just drain the murky pools, wall them up and have an elaborate draining system that pipes it down into an underwater cistern. It was pretty good at flooding my trading depot and spreading mud everywhere, it should be ok for filling up a very modestly sized underground cistern with a well above it or something. Just use a flood gate to close it up when your cistern if full.

[evileeyore]

If it's cold enough to freeze water during the winter, you can safely expand a murky pool until it's 1/7 deep all across, breach one wall, install a floodgate, then wait till winter.  When the water freezes it'll refil the entire pool with ice, then come spring you can drain the whole thing.  When it rains it'll add enough to make sure the pool doesn't completely dry out, then come winter it'll refill with ice again...


I eventually made my own lake this way.

[Girlinhat]

Creative use of pressure plates can automate the freezing refill method.

Also, since you didn't seem to word it directly enough for my taste I'll just clarify this; When water freezes, it makes a solid wall+floor of ice.  When that ice thaws, it creates 7/7 water, no matter how deep the original pool was.  Using this, you can multiply your water up to 7x once a year, or you can carefully use magma under the floor to melt the ice and multiply your water all winter (especially useful on glaciers).

[Psieye]

It doesn't rain fast enough to fill a murky pool that's been breached.

Depends on biome - both the rainfall and the drainage of the terrain affect whether water will accumulate or evaporate from drained pools.

[Girlinhat]

Oh, is this so?  Drainage levels effect how fast murky pools disappear?  I always assumed that temperature was the only consideration.

[hjd_uk]

I've noticed that already drained murky pools won't fill up again as the water evaporates before it can fill, however if the water level is high enough to prevent evaporation (4/5 ?) the pools will slowly fill up with rainfall.

[AutomataKittay]

You can collect rainwater, using murky pools, and making sure water never goes below 2/7, it evaporates automatically eventually on 1/7. However, in very hot weathers, you'll be lucky to get enough water since it 'boils' off from heat, unless it rains insanely lot, or is seasonal. I rarely uses much water on maps with only murky pools, but when I does need water storage ( like on freezing map ), I build underground containers and tries to automate the filling with pressure plates and hatches.

[Psieye]

At the extremes of rainfall and drainage, I had a fort get flooded because of a murky pool which I'd emptied out for irrigation.

[Quietust]

I've also heard that pumps will multiply a given fluid, so it may be possible to create an infinite water reactor by carefully controlling pressure and water levels, and to let the excess water flow out into a cistern/mist generator/drowning trap.

You heard incorrectly - from what I can determine, that bug was fixed back in version 0.27.173.38a (7 months prior to the release of 0.28.181.40d).