Working title for webpage
As artificial intelligence scales exponentially, its increasingly visible and painfully localized strain on freshwater resources poses an unprecedented challenge to climate-resilient water management.
Data centers require millions of gallons of water daily: for cooling and even more so for power. What makes this urgent is where and when this happens. Data infrastructure is frequently clustered in regions already facing severe water stress, utilizing local potable water networks during peak summer heatwaves. AGWA has been working on several projects around the world over the past 18 months that have looked to 1) effectively map the various water demands 2) identify levers for resilience like water governance and energy policy 3) outline who needs to be at which table to ensure ____.
To even stand a chance of resilience in a rapidly changing climate, we must move beyond standard corporate "water replenishment" metrics and mandate true, basin-level water resilience and climate-adaptation planning for all future tech infrastructure.
If taps run dry, so does business
A best case scenario sees proactive investment in sustainable water management, ensuring that tech companies eliminate regulatory and operational risks, transforming potential liabilities into secure, water and climate-resilient assets. Concurrently, municipalities benefit from tech-driven infrastructure upgrades, recycled water networks, and robust resource planning that protects public health and drives local economic growth. This scenario depends on the existence of regulation and a developed understand of water demand far beyond the data centers’ walls.
Project with AWP
Data center capacity in the Indo-Pacific region is predicted to double within the next three years. A project launched in 2025 between the Australian Water Partnership (AWP) and the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) seeks to equip those cities and regions with the policy frameworks, knowledge, and tools they need to not just survive an AI boom but thrive in it.
As part of this project several closed workshops were held with a range of stakeholders in the region which informed the development of three articles and a policy brief.
*Main Guidance Document
Project with Dept of Energy
WRAF is intended to facilitate a shared understanding of water system resilience and allow practitioners to develop common measurable goals and outcomes for stakeholder and resilience planning. Climate change, population growth, and various human-induced effects, along with extreme events, are transforming our planet and challenging what we consider normal. This situation brings forth novel possibilities and difficulties, often difficult to anticipate. In order to confront these challenges and capitalize on opportunities, we must ready our urban areas, enterprises, utilities, and agricultural practices for substantial transformations. It is crucial to construct resilient systems that can adapt and evolve to these changes both on an individual and collective level. The Water Resilience Assessment Framework (WRAF) has been devised precisely to aid these endeavors in bolstering resilience.
Partners
Development of WRAF has been led by CEO Water Mandate, in partnership with the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA), International Water Management Institute (IWMI), World Resources Institute (WRI), and Pacific Institute (PI).
Additional Resources
Launching WRAF [blog article]
Pacific Institute’s ‘From Resilience Indicators to Action’ [video - WWW 2021]
CEO Water Mandate Website [project background]