Data centers have become one of the fastest-growing consumers of local water, driven largely by the AI boom, and the strain is landing hardest in communities that already have the least water to spare. Here’s what’s actually driving the demand, where it’s hitting hardest, and what the industry says it’s doing about it.
Why Data Centers Need So Much Water in the First Place
The core issue comes down to cooling. Cooling is one of the biggest energy drains in data centers, often accounting for around 45 percent of total power use, since server processors generate significant heat that has to be removed to prevent equipment slowdown or failure. Data centers commonly use water-based cooling systems that draw heat away from servers and expel it as warmed liquid or vapor, which means fresh water has to be constantly added to replace what’s lost — resulting in large-scale daily consumption just to keep facilities running.
A large share of large modern data centers specifically rely on evaporative cooling because it’s energy-efficient, especially in hot climates — but the tradeoff is that this method directly consumes water, often drawn straight from a municipal supply rather than being returned to the system.
Just How Much Water We’re Talking About
Figures vary across sources, but the scale is consistently described as enormous. Even a mid-sized data center consumes as much water as a small town, while larger facilities can require up to 5 million gallons of water every day — comparable to a city of 50,000 people. Looking at the national picture, one estimate put the country’s data centers at consuming roughly 449 million gallons per day in 2021, totaling 163.7 billion gallons that year alone.
The water footprint extends well beyond what’s used on-site, too. A data center’s total water footprint includes on-site cooling, water used by power plants supplying its electricity, and water consumed during chip manufacturing — with roughly 80 percent of water withdrawn by data centers evaporating during the cooling process, and the remainder discharged as warm wastewater that can overwhelm local treatment facilities.
Where the Strain Is Concentrated
This isn’t spreading evenly — it’s concentrating specifically in regions that are already water-stressed. According to World Resources Institute data, about two-thirds of new data centers built or planned since 2022 are located in high water stress areas, with five states hosting 72 percent of facilities in the most strained locations.
Texas offers a concrete example of what this looks like at scale: a recent analysis found Texas data centers consumed over 50 billion gallons of water in 2024 alone — enough to supply a city the size of Austin for months. Colorado River Basin communities are facing similar pressure from a different angle, with Lake Powell falling to roughly 40 percent of its storage capacity amid prolonged drought and rising demand from multiple sources, including data centers.
California illustrates how this plays out at the community level. Data centers are expanding into water-stressed California communities, and researchers found that whether data centers use a lot or a little water relative to agriculture or other industries matters less than the scale of new local use compared to available local supply in any given area — meaning the real-world impact depends heavily on exactly where a facility gets built, not just how much water it uses in the abstract.
The Transparency Problem
A recurring theme across multiple reports is that the public often doesn’t have clear visibility into actual water use. Data center builders frequently don’t disclose how much water they use, and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities largely without that information being made public. Even where facilities do report usage, the data isn’t standardized — companies report different metrics, with some sharing total water use and others focusing narrowly on cooling, and not all distinguish between potable and recycled water.
This lack of standardized reporting makes it genuinely difficult for local water planners to anticipate cumulative impacts before facilities are built, rather than discovering the strain after the fact.
What’s Being Done to Reduce the Impact
A few mitigation approaches come up consistently across industry and policy discussions:
- Closed-loop cooling systems, which recirculate water rather than continuously drawing and discharging fresh supply, significantly reducing net consumption compared to evaporative cooling.
- Shifting to renewable energy sources like solar or wind for a facility’s power supply, since these generation methods require no cooling water themselves — addressing the indirect water footprint tied to electricity generation, not just on-site cooling.
- Integrated water-energy planning, which researchers argue is essential specifically because a large share of data center water use is indirect and driven by the local electricity generation mix, meaning water and energy planning need to be coordinated rather than handled separately.
- Public disclosure requirements, which advocacy groups and researchers argue would let communities and planners assess cumulative impacts and make informed decisions before approving new facilities, rather than after they’re already built and drawing water.
A Note on the Numbers
Given how fast this space is moving and how inconsistently different companies report their water use, exact figures — daily gallons per facility, national totals, and projected growth rates — vary noticeably between sources and should be treated as estimates rather than precise, universally agreed-upon numbers. The broader trend of concentrated strain in water-stressed regions, however, shows up consistently across independent research groups, environmental organizations, and industry-adjacent analysis alike.
Join The Discussion
Has a data center project affected water availability or planning in your own community, or have you followed a local proposal through its approval process? Share what you’ve learned about how transparent (or opaque) the water usage disclosures were in your area, and if your region has pushed for stronger reporting requirements or cooling technology standards, it’d be valuable to hear how that effort has gone.
