[Paper Review] The Infrastructure Equation: Water, Energy, and Community Policy for Georgia's Data Center Boom

Mickey M. Rogers, William Ota+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Feb 11, 2026

Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies0 citations

TL;DR

The paper analyzes how Georgia's data center expansion affects water, energy, and land-use; it offers a policy roadmap to balance growth with sustainability, equity, and community protection.

ABSTRACT

The rapid growth of data centers driven by cloud computing and artificial intelligence is reshaping infrastructure planning and environmental governance in the United States. Georgia has emerged as a major market for data center development, particularly in the Atlanta metropolitan region, creating economic opportunity alongside significant challenges. Data centers are water-intensive, energy-intensive, and land-intensive infrastructure whose cumulative impacts strain municipal water systems, electric grids, and local land-use frameworks. Unlike single industrial projects, data centers are often proposed in clusters, amplifying community and infrastructure impacts. This report draws on insights from a Georgia-based expert convening to describe the implications of data center growth for water management, energy reliability, ratepayer equity, zoning, and community engagement, identify potential gaps in transparency and regulatory coordination, and present a policy roadmap to help Georgia balance digital infrastructure growth with sustainability, equity, and community protection.

Motivation & Objective

• Explain how data center growth in Georgia impacts water systems, energy grids, and land use.
• Identify governance gaps in transparency and regulatory coordination.
• Assess implications for ratepayers, zoning, and community engagement.
• Propose policy options to balance digital infrastructure growth with sustainability and equity.

Proposed method

• Synthesize insights from a Georgia-based expert convening on data centers.
• Describe implications for water management, energy reliability, and ratepayer equity.
• Evaluate zoning, transparency, and regulatory coordination gaps.
• Develop a policy roadmap to balance infrastructure growth with community protection.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What are the water, energy, and land-use implications of Georgia’s data center growth?
• RQ2 What gaps exist in transparency and regulatory coordination that affect data center governance?
• RQ3 What policy pathways can balance data center expansion with sustainability, equity, and community protection?

Key findings

• Data centers are water-, energy-, and land-intensive infrastructure.
• Clustered data centers amplify impacts on municipal water systems and electric grids.
• There are gaps in transparency and regulatory coordination affecting governance.
• Policy options can help Georgia balance digital infrastructure growth with sustainability and equity.
• Community engagement and zoning considerations are central to an effective policy roadmap.