[raxxorraxor]

At least that is generally the case for calculating the ecological footprint of a person.

I am critical of this metric though, since the water isn't really lost in many cases. Especially if datacenters use water never meant for consumption.

If you look at it as a power generation problem it become much more plastic. That is of course as long as the water doesn't get expended in regions that lack it.

Although if you want to compare datacenter usage to agriculture, you could say that one is more essential than the other. Even if modern agriculture is a high tech industry that uses datacenters.

[LPisGood]

I generally find criticism of water waste misplaced. Water’s lifecycle is cyclic. The water isn’t lost unless it is being salted or otherwise poisoned.

The real waste is the energy required to produce, clean, and transport the water that is being “wasted.”

[pas]

aquifers deplete, the water table lowers, wells dry up

sustainability, availability and maximum marginal price matters, just as with electric power generation

[chemotaxis]

Depletion of local water resources is a good thing to measure. But by and large, this is not what we're measuring. Instead, we're coming up with absurd statistics that imply any water put to beneficial use just disappears forever.

If your tap water comes from a river and flows back to a river, leaving it running mostly just wastes energy.