A newly published global analysis reveals that approximately one-quarter of the world’s operational data centers are situated in regions facing seasonal or chronic water scarcity. The research, published in an environmental science journal and released by the American Chemical Society, maps 9,347 data centers worldwide and compares their geographic locations against local water supply and demand from urban, agricultural, industrial, and power generation sectors.
The findings show that about 25 percent of these facilities operate in areas experiencing at least one month of water supply deficits annually. Furthermore, roughly 6 percent of all data centers are located in zones that deal with water pressure during the vast majority of the year. Lorenzo Rosa, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science and lead author of the study, noted that data centers are rarely built in unoccupied areas devoid of competing needs; instead, they are superimposed directly onto water resources already relied upon by surrounding communities and farmland.
The heavy water dependence stems from the intense heat generated by servers during operation. To prevent hardware failure and performance degradation, facilities must cool processors and memory continuously. While some operations utilize air cooling or closed-loop liquid systems, many rely on cooling towers and evaporative cooling techniques where water evaporates directly into the atmosphere and cannot immediately return to local municipal supplies. Unlike electricity, which can travel flexibly across wide-area transmission grids, water must generally be drawn from nearby rivers, lakes, reservoirs, or underground aquifers shared with local residents, farms, and factories.
Geographic distribution varies significantly across the globe. The United States accounts for 39 percent of the global data center total evaluated in the study, making it the most concentrated national market. Within the U.S., about 21 percent of facilities reside in water-stressed areas. While many East Coast clusters enjoy abundant supplies, parts of the American West and South face multi-month supply gaps or year-round pressure. In Europe, data centers are heavily concentrated in northern and central regions with generally lower water stress, whereas southern nations such as Spain, Italy, and Greece feature pockets where water deficits persist for more than half the year. Canada, despite its vast overall water wealth, sees about 35 percent of its data center facilities experience at least one month of supply shortfalls annually due to localized mismatches between population centers and water availability.
The study also examined the primary competing water sectors surrounding these facilities. Globally, about 41 percent of data centers are located in municipal water-dominated zones, while 28 percent sit in areas where agricultural irrigation is the primary demand. Manufacturing accounts for roughly 18 percent of overlapping sectors, and power generation represents 8 percent, with the remainder involving mining and livestock activities. These overlaps indicate that data center expansion intersects directly with municipal drinking water, food production, and regional energy supplies.
To gauge future risks, the research team modeled a climate scenario where global average temperatures rise 3 degrees Celsius above 1900 levels—a plausible condition for the next 10 to 40 years. Under this warmer scenario, the proportion of global data centers located in regions where water demand outstrips supply could climb from one-quarter to one-third, with the United States absorbing a significant share of the increased strain.
Researchers emphasized that the assessment measures current operational risks rather than predicting future construction locations, nor does it imply that every facility in a stressed region will experience service outages. Operators retain options such as acquiring water rights, investing in storage, shifting to alternative water sources, or modifying cooling protocols. However, the study’s authors argue that long-term industry planning must elevate water resource management alongside traditional site selection factors like tax incentives, power availability, and network latency to ensure sustainable digital infrastructure growth.
