Lake emptying/drying

[Papa Nurgle]

It would be great to have a way, other than landfilling the whole area, to dry the ground for mining ops or building. Could be either using pumps, natural drying[or gushing out in some cases...] or other ways, just as an altenative to landfilling, please.

[jamiechi]

Others agree with you:
https://ideas.captain-of-industry.com/suggestions/337136/pump-for-flooded-mines
Edit:
I would also like to use a pump to fill small areas with water to minimize long lines of pipes to move water to other places. I left a small rectangle of water to do this. Worked really well. Having small lakes here and there, surrounded by factories works quite well.
Example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2912287872