waterbycounty

Data centers and water

Data Center Water Use in Douglas County, GA

Douglas County, Georgia has 8 mapped data center facilities, including Google, carrying about 774 MW of estimated power load.

Google

Water pressure for new demandHow hard a large new water user, like a data center, would press on this county's water. It blends recent drinking-water compliance, drought, and existing industrial demand. Higher pressure means new demand competes harder with current uses. It is not a judgment about whether one should be built.

26/ 100

Moderate water pressure

Douglas County has no health violations in the last 5 years, severe drought, low existing industrial water demand.

Mapped facilities
8
EPA + OpenStreetMap layers
Estimated power load
774 MW
IM3 Atlas capacity estimate
Permitted discharge
600K gal/day
Clean Water Act permit fields
DCWSI national rank
#10
of 318 scored counties

The operators

How many data centers are in Douglas County?

8 facilities are mapped to Douglas County, Georgia across the EPA and OpenStreetMap layers, run by operators including Google. Counts reflect mapped footprint, not an operator's total fleet.

  • Centersquare Atlanta ATL1

    Lithia Springs, GA

    OpenStreetMap
  • Digital Realty Atlanta ATL11

    Digital Realty · Austell, GA

    OpenStreetMap
  • Flexential Atlanta - Douglasville 1

    Flexential · Douglasville, GA

    OpenStreetMap
  • Flexential Atlanta - Douglasville 2

    Flexential · Douglasville, GA

    OpenStreetMap
  • Google Datacenter - Douglas County

    Google · 13

    OpenStreetMap
  • GOOGLE, LLC

    Google · LITHIA SPRINGS, GA

    EPA ECHO
  • GOOGLE, LLC

    Google · LITHIA SPRINGS, GA

    EPA CWA
  • Switch Data Center

    Switch · Lithia Springs, GA

    OpenStreetMap

Supply versus demand

How much water do Douglas County data centers use?

Exact facility water draw is rarely public. As a screening proxy we compare the Clean Water Act permitted discharge mapped to these facilities against the county's entire industrial water baseline from the USGS 2020 series.

The Clean Water Act permitted discharge from mapped data centers in Douglas County equals about 216% of the county's reported industrial water baseline.

Facility discharge vs county industrial water216%
Mapped facility discharge
0.60 Mgal/day
County industrial baseline
0.28 Mgal/day

Model a build

Can Douglas County support more data centers?

Douglas County carries 26 on the water-pressure scale, so new large-load demand warrants closer scrutiny. Size a hypothetical build to see the daily draw against the county industrial baseline.

Data Center Water Budget Calculator

Estimate daily water use for a hypothetical facility in Douglas County.

1 MW1,000 MW
40%100%
799K gallons/dayHigh Impact

Your facility would use 287.7% of this county's industrial water baseline. Verify water rights and long-term drought projections before committing.

287.7% of county industrial baseline

Based on USGS 2020 water-use data and EPA-standard cooling intensity constants. Not a substitute for site-specific water rights analysis.

In context

How does Douglas County compare nationally?

DCWSI build-out rank
#10
of 318 counties with a stress score
Water pressure vs median
+7
national median is 19 of 100
Share of mapped load
0.5%
of 166.02 GW mapped nationally

Douglas County is one of 330 US counties with mapped data centers. See the full ranking and the interactive map in the national atlas.

Facility data combines EPA ECHO, EPA Clean Water Act permits, OpenStreetMap, and the IM3 Open Source Data Center Atlas (DOE/PNNL), geocoded to county FIPS. Capacity and water baselines come from IM3 and USGS 2020 water-use data. These are county-level screening figures, not a facility-level water-use audit. Read the full methodology.

By Evan Brooks, Data EditorPublished Reviewed by Evan Brooks, Data Editor