The National Drought Group, a UK collaboration between government and industry, has suggested deleting old emails to save on water.

The suggestion, alongside shorter showers and fixing leaks, comes amid a “nationally significant” water shortfall in the country.

The National Drought Group includes the Met Office, government, regulators, water companies, the National Farmers’ Union, Canal & River Trust, anglers, and conservation experts.

“We are grateful to the public for following the restrictions, where in place, to conserve water in these dry conditions,” the Environment Agency’s director of Water and NDG chair, Helen Wakeham, said.

“Simple, everyday choices – such as turning off a tap or deleting old emails – also really help the collective effort to reduce demand and help preserve the health of our rivers and wildlife.”

Five areas of England are officially in drought, with six more experiencing prolonged dry weather following the driest six months to July since 1976. The drought puts farming at risk, alongside wetlands and rivers.

However, it is not clear how much water could be saved by deleting emails or pictures. Water usage at data centers is not a constant metric – facilities often use vastly different cooling systems, with some using closed-loop systems. The water is sometimes potable, and other times wastewater.

Data centers rarely share water usage data, and the total water usage of the sector in the UK is unknown. Microsoft’s global data center footprint consumed 5,807,000 m3 in FY 2024, while the company withdrew 10,377,000 m3 – all for around 5GW of compute, across different ambient temperatures and water basins. The UK data center market is estimated at around 2GW.

There are also trade-offs between water usage and electricity – with more electricity generally required for lower water use solutions. The UK is also struggling with grid availability challenges.

Storage of smaller files like emails and pictures would not be expected to lead to significant water consumption, even at scale. AI models could be trained on the data, which could consume more power and water in aggregate.

The UK government has aggressively pushed for more data centers in the UK, calling for around 6GW in AI compute by 2030.

Earlier this year, the Royal Academy of Engineering said that the government should make reporting on energy consumption, energy sources, water consumption and withdrawal, water sources, carbon emissions, e-waste recycling, and the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of data centers mandatory.