Welcome to my world. A 100-year-old house in the village center, during prolonged rain events you can watch how the stratified water presses up from below in the basement through the rammed earth / brick floor because we are situated on such a clay base. All neighbors with older buildings have the same problem.
There are certainly means and ways. Beforehand, you need to clarify the question of what you can or want to spend – respectively what you can live with. We have come to terms with it because the basement has been damp again and again for 100 years and then dries out quickly. Due to the construction method, this was simply factored in. Possibilities to reduce it are:
(1) - this is how we do it currently - sufficiently deep pump sump outside or in the basement at the lowest point, pumping away rising water as well as possible. Advantage: the floor can be kept relatively dry. Disadvantage: there is definitely a risk of drawing in a lot of water, since H2O naturally takes the path of least resistance.
(2) Drainage: Once around the house sealing and laying drainage under the foundation edge, thus "removing" the water past the house. Disadvantage as far as I know, that drainage also works in reverse (meaning water can first run in from the sides and then still creep underneath somewhere).
(3) Sealing the basement floor inside, i.e. putting PE foil on it and then screed or similar. But in my opinion this only works with a proper foundation slab – and the question remains where the water then gets through, since it is not a complete envelope in that sense.
(4) You can apparently even retroactively create a tank with considerable effort. But I don't want to know what that costs and whether it technically corresponds to the basement tanks of a new building.
