Amazon wants to help the Colorado River, but we still don’t know how much water the company uses
Amazon wants to help the Colorado River, but we still don’t know how much water the company uses
Amazon 想要帮助科罗拉多河，但我们仍然不知道该公司到底消耗了多少水资源
Amazon plans to spend $20 million on water conservation projects along the Colorado River, a crucial but dwindling water supply for 40 million people in the Western US.
亚马逊计划投入 2000 万美元用于科罗拉多河沿岸的水资源保护项目。科罗拉多河是美国西部 4000 万人口至关重要但正日益枯竭的水源。
The initiative comes as Amazon and other tech companies face mounting scrutiny over how much water their data centers use. Amazon has a goal of becoming water positive — replenishing more water than it uses — by the end of the decade. It recently disclosed some information about its water use, but we still have an incomplete picture of the company’s impact as a whole.
随着亚马逊和其他科技公司因数据中心耗水量问题面临越来越大的审查压力，这一倡议应运而生。亚马逊的目标是在本十年末实现“水资源正效益”（water positive），即回馈的水量超过其消耗的水量。虽然该公司最近披露了一些用水信息，但我们对该公司整体的影响力仍缺乏完整的了解。
Amazon announced the launch of a Colorado River Basin Collaborative today, with a mission to “create one of the biggest corporate water conservation efforts for a single U.S. watershed.” It expects to raise $100 million over two years — including the $20 million investment from its own coffers — for water conservation efforts.
亚马逊今日宣布启动“科罗拉多河流域协作计划”（Colorado River Basin Collaborative），其使命是“为美国单一流域创建规模最大的企业水资源保护行动之一”。该公司预计在两年内筹集 1 亿美元（包括其自身投入的 2000 万美元）用于水资源保护工作。
The Colorado River brings water to 40 million people
科罗拉多河为 4000 万人提供水源
Stretching 1,400 miles, the Colorado River brings water to 40 million people across seven states in the Western US and two states in Mexico. The waterway has faced “unprecedented” drought over the last 26 years, according to the US Bureau of Reclamation. Decades of overuse on top of human-caused climate change have exacerbated the problem. To cope, the US Department of the Interior finalized a plan in August imposing steep water cuts on Arizona, Nevada, and California.
科罗拉多河全长 1400 英里，为美国西部七个州和墨西哥两个州的 4000 万人提供水源。据美国垦务局称，这条水道在过去 26 年里一直面临“前所未有”的干旱。数十年的过度使用加上人为造成的气候变化，加剧了这一问题。为了应对危机，美国内政部于 8 月敲定了一项计划，对亚利桑那州、内华达州和加利福尼亚州实施大幅度用水削减。
As the first stop for most goods the US imports from Asia, California is home to more Amazon warehouses than any other state. In Orange County, California, Amazon pledged $2.2 million over the next three years to help detect and patch up leaks. That effort is ultimately supposed to conserve 189 million gallons of water each year, according to Amazon.
作为美国从亚洲进口商品的主要门户，加利福尼亚州拥有的亚马逊仓库数量超过了其他任何州。在加州奥兰治县，亚马逊承诺在未来三年内投入 220 万美元，用于帮助检测和修补漏水。据亚马逊称，这项工作最终预计每年可节约 1.89 亿加仑水。
As part of the newly announced collaborative, other companies can contract independently with conservation projects they choose. The United Nations-backed Water Resilience Coalition will vet projects. Amazon is also joining the Water Resilience Coalition, which includes Microsoft, Meta, and other brands across a range of sectors.
作为新宣布的协作计划的一部分，其他公司可以独立选择并签约参与保护项目。联合国支持的“水资源韧性联盟”（Water Resilience Coalition）将负责审核这些项目。亚马逊也加入了该联盟，其成员还包括微软、Meta 以及其他多个行业的品牌。
Tech companies are facing waves of resistance against new AI data centers. AI was estimated to use between 312.5 billion and 764.6 billion liters of water in 2025, according to one estimate, about as much water as people consume globally in water bottles. In Arizona, Colorado River water cuts are expected to raise utility rates, and some residents fear data centers could make things worse.
科技公司正面临针对新建 AI 数据中心的抵制浪潮。据一项估算，2025 年人工智能的用水量在 3125 亿至 7646 亿升之间，这相当于全球人类瓶装水的消费总量。在亚利桑那州，科罗拉多河的用水削减预计将推高公用事业费率，一些居民担心数据中心可能会使情况进一步恶化。
In June, Amazon disclosed that its data centers used 2.5 billion gallons of water globally in 2025, including those it owns, leases, or shares. Data centers Amazon owns and operates directly reduced their water consumption by 2 percent in 2025 compared to the year prior, according to the company. It attributes gains to a 52 percent improvement in water efficiency since 2021. The company says it uses 0.12 liters of water per kilowatt-hour of electricity, claiming that’s about seven times more efficient than the industry average for data centers.
今年 6 月，亚马逊披露其 2025 年全球数据中心（包括自有、租赁或共享）共消耗了 25 亿加仑水。据该公司称，亚马逊直接拥有和运营的数据中心在 2025 年的用水量较上一年减少了 2%。公司将其归功于自 2021 年以来水资源利用效率提高了 52%。该公司表示，其每千瓦时电力的用水量为 0.12 升，并声称这比数据中心行业的平均水平高出约七倍。
Amazon’s annual sustainability report shares water use per unit of power (l/kwh) for its data centers since 2021, but not the company’s total water use over that time period. Sustainability experts and environmental advocates caution against assessing a company’s sustainability by efficiency measurements alone. The more efficient a technology becomes, the more resources it might ultimately consume as companies start using it more, according to an economic concept called Jevons paradox. That makes it important to track how much water a company is using overall, as well as how much it needs in each place it operates during demand peaks when supply is most limited.
亚马逊的年度可持续发展报告自 2021 年起公布了其数据中心的单位电力用水量（升/千瓦时），但并未公布该公司在此期间的总用水量。可持续发展专家和环保倡导者警告称，不能仅凭效率指标来评估一家公司的可持续性。根据经济学中的“杰文斯悖论”（Jevons paradox），技术越高效，随着公司使用频率的增加，最终消耗的资源反而可能越多。因此，追踪一家公司的总体用水量，以及在供应最紧张的用电高峰期在各运营地点的用水需求，显得尤为重要。
For comparison, Microsoft’s latest sustainability report discloses its data centers’ total water use since 2020, while Google’s report shares water use for global operations since 2021 with a breakdown by location. All three tech giants have had to abandon data center projects after facing community opposition, Reuters reports. Unlike other tech companies, Amazon’s warehouses also have a massive physical footprint that isn’t reflected in the company’s data center disclosures.
作为对比，微软最新的可持续发展报告披露了其数据中心自 2020 年以来的总用水量，而谷歌的报告则分享了自 2021 年以来的全球运营用水量，并按地点进行了细分。据路透社报道，这三家科技巨头都曾因面临社区反对而不得不放弃数据中心项目。与其他科技公司不同，亚马逊的仓库还拥有巨大的物理占地面积，而这并未反映在公司的数据中心披露信息中。
A Guardian investigation in 2025 alleges that Amazon obscured how much water the company uses by deciding not to account for how much it takes to generate electricity, considered a “secondary” water use. Concerned about “reputational risk,” executives decided to only address “primary” water use at its facilities when calculating progress toward sustainability goals. The numbers Amazon recently shared about its data center water use also exclude water consumption stemming from electricity generation.
2025 年《卫报》的一项调查指控称，亚马逊通过决定不计入发电所需的用水量（被视为“二次”用水），掩盖了其实际用水量。出于对“声誉风险”的担忧，高管们决定在计算可持续发展目标进度时，仅统计其设施的“一次”用水量。亚马逊最近分享的数据中心用水量数据同样排除了发电产生的用水消耗。
While data centers often use water for cooling systems, a majority of a data center’s water footprint stems from this “secondary use.” Power plants need water to cool equipment and turn turbines using steam, and in 2021, Amazon used 10.5 billion gallons (39.7 billion liters) of water in 2021, according to the Guardian report citing an internal leaked document. That’s about as much as 95,000 US households consume.
虽然数据中心通常使用水进行冷却系统运作，但数据中心大部分的水足迹实际上源于这种“二次使用”。发电厂需要水来冷却设备并利用蒸汽驱动涡轮机。据《卫报》援引一份泄露的内部文件报道，亚马逊在 2021 年的用水量为 105 亿加仑（397 亿升）。这大约相当于 9.5 万个美国家庭的用水量。
In an email to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan says the Guardian report “relied on cherry-picked data from an outdated document that misrepresents our water strategy — making the conclusions fundamentally wrong and misleading.”
在给《The Verge》的一封电子邮件中，亚马逊发言人玛格丽特·卡拉汉（Margaret Callahan）表示，《卫报》的报道“依赖于过时文件中经过挑选的数据，歪曲了我们的水资源战略，导致其结论从根本上是错误且具有误导性的。”