Farms next to water ?

[Popex]

Do you have to place the farms at the same Z level as water ?
Meaning if there is fresh water deep in cave do I have to dig up to the sun for light to come in ?
Or can I place the farms several levels above so it is under the sun and has benefits from water ?

Also is it possible to put farms next to salted water ? Fresh water is so scarce, it seems it's needed for tea but can villagers survive if not drinking ?

[Zergit]

Your villagers will drink from the fresh water source, they don't need tea, it just mitigates some of the negative attitude towards "drinking from stream".

As for the farms, I've found the water seems to have an Area of effect to some degree. I have a massive number of farms near a man made lake that's 2 levels lower than the farm level and all the farms have the "wet" water status, but this is a lake I've been filling manually rather than stagnant water from the beginning.

As to the salt water with farms, I'm not sure about, I've never built a farm beside anything but fresh water. I would suggest though, if you don't have a huge quantity of fresh water nearby (400+ tiles) you colony is going to struggle after 4 or 5 years with water shortages, I drained a 100+ tile lake near by farms with juice and ale and all my farms were effected, I had to quickly transport water from a massive lake about 800 tiles away, and that happened by the 3rd year. Using desalination of salt water just doesn't seem economical with the wood/coal requirements to use as a main water supply.

[benjamin020738]

for the last point, the water evaporates after having desalinated it. how to do?