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[BelligerentlyLiterate]

So I lucked out with a pretty sweet above ground volcano in the middle of a temperate woodland at embark. It's a pretty sweet setup; tons of valuable ore, all the natural resources I need, etc. EXCEPT: my only source of fresh water is a small section of running river in the very bottom corner of my map, like 30 z-levels below my main level fortress. Thanks to some wells, the elevation isn't really an issue, but the water just can't seem to fill out the narrow channel I dug so that there's a 3-deep water tile at the bottom of them. At first I thought it was just because it would freeze during the winter, so I piped some through the level below it. Still, it seems to run short just due to evaporation.

This is a pretty sweet fort I've got going, and I'd hate to have to abandon it because my populace died of dehydration. Anyone got some tips for moving large amounts of water laterally at once?

[Kametec_Housen]

It depends on what your objective is. Do you want to fill a reservoir? Do you want to create a continuous flow to power waterwheels?

If you're trying to fill a reservoir and your issue is that water dries before it reaches its destination, you might want to try pumps. Pumps are fast. A single pump at the entry point may solve your issue. It will both force 7 depth right after it and it will prevent the water from flowing back, helping the flow reach its destination.

Another way would be preparing the aqueduct below the river and punching hole from below into the river bed. It will have a similar effect to the pump - water gaining depth fast to prevent evaporation and speeds the flow. Even 2 depth at the river will contribute to the flow. If you have the aqueduct at the same z-level as the river is and you don't have a pump feeding the water, you may end with situation when the river is drained to say 3 depth and if your aqueduct is also at 3 depth the water will flow slowly.

[PatrikLundell]

For reasonably limited amounts of water a bucket brigade action works well.

To combat evaporation, you can fill a channel a bit at a time, such that you'll only have 1/7 water briefly. Thus, dig your channel in disjointed sections of e.g. 10 tiles, interrupted by a single unchanneled tile. once done, breach the tile in between the first segment and the water source. Wait until this section is essentially full. Dig out the next tile divider. Wait... This limits evaporation quite a bit.
However, an underground connection is probably better. So far I've never had any issue with single tile wide water channels, but I did have one with magma in one embark: I tried to dig a single tile wide "moat" 10 tiles from the edge of the 3*3 embark, except for the volcano mountain section, but the magma never managed to reach all the way around due to evaporation (2/3 of the last edge...).
If you want to make sure an underground connection doesn't dry out due to evaporation, use the same technique but with drawbridges, floodgates, or doors (only drawbridges are building destroyer safe). They'd have to be hooked up to levers, of course.

[BelligerentlyLiterate]

Thanks for the suggestions. Thanks to what I thought at the time was a wisely placed magma channel, going below the river at this point would be risky at best, but fortunately I was able to punch through to a cavern with a huge underground lake. Currently constructing a perpetual motion pump stack to get the water some place usable.