The data

Texas Data Center Water Impact

Name: Texas Data Center Water Impact Analysis
Creator: Big Data Damage
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Our original analysis of where Texas data centers land relative to the public water systems Texans depend on. Every figure below is sourced and reproducible — use it, cite it.

By the numbers

What the overlay shows

data centers tracked across Texas

Big Data Damage facility tracker — each entry source-linked

fall inside a mapped public water-supply service area

Overlay vs. USGS Public-Supply Water Service Areas (2017)

public water systems have a tracked data center in their territory

Distinct USGS service areas containing ≥1 tracked facility

5.25M

Texans are served by those 13 water systems

Combined USGS TPOPSRV (population served) for those systems

sit outside any mapped service area — typically well-reliant land

Tracked facilities with no overlapping USGS service area

Where the 79 tracked facilities draw their water

Inside a public water system, the facility shares a supply with surrounding homes and farms. Outside one, the surrounding land typically relies on private groundwater wells.

Inside a public water-supply service area56

Outside any mapped area (private wells / groundwater)23

The 79 tracked facilities by status

Updated continuously as our discovery pipeline confirms new public records.

Operating34

Under construction41

Proposed4

Explore each facility on the interactive hotspot map.

Methodology

How we measured this

We took the coordinates of every data center in our tracker and tested, point-by-point, which ones fall inside a mapped public water-supply service area. Population figures are the total each affected system reports serving. Analysis last computed June 28, 2026.

Sources

USGS Public-Supply Water Service Areas (2017)Federal public-domain layer mapping the boundaries of U.S. public water systems and the population each serves (TPOPSRV field). DOI 10.5066/P9I22Z24.
Big Data Damage facility trackerOur source-linked inventory of tracked Texas data centers. Every facility is placed by coordinate and backed by a public record or news report.

What these numbers do and don't mean

Shared supply, not consumption: a facility falling inside a water system's territory means it shares that public supply — it is not a measure of how much water the data center itself draws.
The USGS service-area layer reflects 2017 boundaries; some systems have changed since.
Our tracker is a curated, source-linked inventory of known Texas data centers, not an exhaustive census of every facility in the state.
Population figures are the total served by each water system (USGS TPOPSRV), not the number of people affected by a data center.

For journalists & researchers

Cite this page

This analysis is free to cite and republish with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Working on a story? Reach us at 214-206-3377.

Big Data Damage. (2026). Texas Data Center Water Impact Analysis. https://www.bigdatadamage.com/water-impact

Last updated June 28, 2026.