As the data center industry has grown, so too has the attention paid to its environmental footprint. Much of the sustainability discussion has understandably focused on mitigation: reducing resource consumption, improving operational efficiency and offsetting unavoidable impacts. Rowan believes the order matters: first, we must minimize our own footprint as much as possible; then, we should look for opportunities to go further, helping strengthen the resources and communities where we operate.

Our approach begins with a broader question: How can data center development not only minimize its impact on local water resources, but contribute to the long-term resilience of the watersheds in which we operate?

Answering that question requires recognizing a fundamental feature of water management: water is inherently local. Availability, legal frameworks, infrastructure, regional demands and hydrologic conditions vary considerably by geography.

There is also a tendency in the public discussion to describe data center water use through the performance characteristics of earlier generations of digital infrastructure. That can obscure an important point: water consumption is not a fixed characteristic of a data center. It is substantially influenced by where a facility is built, how it is engineered and, in particular, the cooling technology selected for the site.

As operations and technology evolve rapidly, the discussion around water should keep up. The relevant question is not simply how much water data centers have historically used, but what level of water demand is necessary for the facilities being designed today and what technologies are available to reduce that demand tomorrow.

This is why technology selection and local hydrology need to be considered together. There is no single cooling strategy appropriate for every data center or every location. A technology well suited to one geography may be poorly suited to another.

At Rowan, that analysis begins early in development. We evaluate local water stress, anticipated demand, available infrastructure and cooling options as part of the design process. The objective is to understand the conditions surrounding a site before making technology choices that can determine its water requirements for years to come.

Put more simply, the most effective gallon of water to replenish is often the gallon that did not need to be consumed in the first place.

In water-stressed areas of Texas, for example, Rowan has selected air-cooled, closed-loop cooling systems that continuously recirculate water rather than depending on a continuous supply of supplemental water for cooling. Importantly, this approach was incorporated into the underlying design of the campuses from the beginning, setting a low water use baseline and informing downstream sustainability decisions.

Technology selection addresses only part of the issue, however. Even highly efficient facilities retain some form of a water footprint. Effective stewardship therefore requires both an accurate understanding of that footprint and consideration of opportunities to generate measurable benefits beyond the boundaries of the data center itself.

At Rowan’s Cinco project in Medina County, Texas, for example, we invested in the Edwards Aquifer Conservancy and the Edwards Aquifer Authority’s Groundwater Conservation Program. The initiative supports improvements that help farmers transition from less efficient agricultural irrigation practices to technologies that use significantly less groundwater while maintaining agricultural productivity.

The resulting conservation benefit is expected to offset 250 percent of the water associated with the project.

The sequence is important. Replenishment should follow efforts to minimize consumption rather than serve as a substitute for efficiency. In our view, that distinction should become increasingly central to how the data center industry defines credible water stewardship.

This requires developers to ask a more detailed set of questions at the beginning of the development process. What are the existing conditions and constraints of the aquifer or watershed, and how could local hydrology change over the life of the project as the climate changes? What other demands exist on the resource today, and how might those demands evolve over time? Which cooling technologies can materially reduce water requirements? Are reclaimed water or alternative sources available? And after demand has been reduced as much as practicable, where can conservation or replenishment investments produce meaningful and measurable benefits within the region?

The answers will differ across geographies, but a credible water strategy should reflect those differences rather than attempt to impose a uniform solution across fundamentally different hydrologic environments.

We are working toward water-positive outcomes in water-stressed regions while developing a broader framework that incorporates water-risk assessment, efficient cooling technologies, sustainable sourcing, and locally relevant conservation and replenishment. The goal is not to accumulate a collection of disconnected sustainability initiatives. It is to establish a disciplined approach to water stewardship that can be applied consistently, and at scale, across a growing development portfolio.

This also requires treating water as a factor in decisions that traditionally may have been considered primarily through engineering, commercial or operational lenses. Site selection has implications for water. So do engineering and cooling-system choices, infrastructure planning and, increasingly, energy strategy. Evaluating these decisions together creates a better understanding of both the direct and indirect resource implications of a project.

The data center industry has demonstrated a considerable capacity to solve complex infrastructure challenges at scale. Applying that same technical rigor to water will be increasingly important as the industry continues to grow.