Data centers also have a large indirect impact on water resources because electricity generation often requires water.

Thermoelectric power plants, including fossil fuel and nuclear plants, commonly use water for cooling.

Therefore, even air-cooled data centers may indirectly increase water consumption by increasing electricity demand (Siddik et al., 2021).

Researchers identified that nearly half of U.S. data center servers are powered partly by plants located in water-stressed regions (Siddik et al., 2021).