If I make a pump stack, do I need to get massive quantities of windmills to power them, or can a dwarf just pump on the top and power the whole thing?
Note: I can't just use perpetual motion, there's no water on my map except for 1-2 filled murky ponds right after it rains, and that evaporates almost immediately, especially during summer in which water is removed from murky pools immediately anyway. Not even in the caverns. No clue why there's no water in the caverns. (At least layer 1 and 2, but pumping water up from 3 would be counterintuitive anyway because the magma source I'm using is also in cavern layer 3 and I could just skip the water and pump the magma)
OK, if you get any rainfall at all, here's what I suggest:
Build a channel in the middle of your pond, and remove slope, repeat until there is a channel several tiles deep. Then dig across a few tiles. Build a Floodgate, link it to a lever, then a wall, then cut fortifications into it, then build a second floodgate and link it to a *different* lever, and then build a cistern with stairs. Put a grate at the top.
WWWWWWWW
WSCXFXPW
WWWWWWWW
W = natural rock walls
S = stairs
C = Cistern
X = Floodgates
F = constructed wall with fortifications cut into it
P = Pond hole
Basically what will hopefully happen is that the little dribbles of water you see will fall down into the hole and build up in the hole under the pond to a point high enough that you can start slowly siphoning it off by cycling the floodgates. You want at least one constructed wall fortification to keep out building destroyers while still allowing water in.