Data centers' water use is just ~4% of US golf course irrigation, study argues
kimmonismus · x · 2026-11-07
Citing a UC Riverside/Caltech arXiv paper ("Small Bottle, Big Pipe"), kimmonismus pushes back on the claim that data centers are a major drain on national water resources: large US data centers consumed an estimated 19-23 billion gallons on-site in 2024, only about 4% of the 532 billion gallons US golf courses used for irrigation that year.
The paper itself flags a real bottleneck: peak water capacity. At 2024 water-use intensity, US data centers could need 697-1,451 million gallons per day of new water capacity through 2030 — comparable to New York City's 1,000 MGD average supply. Even with a 10% annual intensity reduction, high-growth scenarios still require capacity equal to roughly half of NYC's daily demand, potentially forcing operators onto less efficient dry cooling during summer peaks.
Related event: US Data Center Water Use Only 4% of Golf Course Irrigation, Study Finds(3 posts)→
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