Do Almonds Use More Water Than AI? Data and Calculator

Yes. California almond orchards use far more water than all US data centres combined. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory counts 66 billion litres of direct water use by US data centres in 2023. California almonds received roughly 3.8 to 6.8 trillion litres of applied water in the years studied (Pacific Institute, 2010; California Water Impact Network, 2024). So almonds or AI use more water? On today’s numbers, almonds use dozens of times more than the direct cooling water of every US data centre.

The comparison has limits, and they matter. No agency publishes a water figure for AI alone, and data centre use is rising. This page lays out the numbers with their sources, compares almonds with walnuts and pistachios per kilogram and per acre, and gives a calculator so you can test the comparison with your own orchard size. It also covers what satellites and AI can and cannot do to cut orchard irrigation.

Do almonds use more water than AI?

US data centres consumed about 66 billion litres of water directly in 2023, mostly for cooling, according to the 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The same report adds a second number: the water used at power plants to make the electricity those data centres draw. It puts that indirect footprint at nearly 800 billion litres, based on 176 TWh of data centre electricity use in 2023.

Almond water use depends on which estimate you pick. The Pacific Institute estimated about 3.1 million acre-feet of applied water for California almonds in 2010, as set out in its analysis of almonds and the California drought. The California Water Impact Network, an advocacy group, estimates 4.7 to 5.5 million acre-feet a year, depending on water supply and bearing acreage. One acre-foot is 1,233 cubic metres, or about 1.23 million litres, according to the USGS.

California’s almond area was 1,505,997 acres in 2025, of which 1,401,097 acres were bearing, according to the Almond Board of California’s Land IQ survey. The Pacific Institute puts average almond water use at 44 to 48 inches a year, citing UC Davis and the state Department of Water Resources. Multiplying 1.4 million bearing acres by 44 to 48 inches gives about 5.1 to 5.6 million acre-feet. That is our arithmetic, and it overlaps the C-WIN range of 4.7 to 5.5 million acre-feet.

Even the lowest almond figure is about 58 times the direct data centre figure. It is about 4 times direct and indirect water combined. The C-WIN low figure is nearly 90 times direct use and about 7 times direct plus indirect.

How the almond and data centre numbers compare

Data centre water use is small today but it is growing. The Berkeley report shows direct use of 21.2 billion litres in 2014 and 66 billion litres in 2023, even as older in-house server rooms shrank to 12 percent of the total. Electricity use reached 176 TWh in 2023, 4.4 percent of US electricity. The indirect water factor was 4.52 litres per kilowatt-hour for data centres, against 4.35 for the US grid overall. Where a data centre sits therefore changes its indirect water use.

The chart below puts the five numbers on one scale. Two cautions apply. First, the bases differ. Data centre numbers are water consumed, which means evaporated. Almond numbers are water applied to orchards, and some of it returns to the ground or runs off. Second, the Berkeley figures cover all US data centres, not AI alone. The report expects the largest sites, called hyperscale data centres, to consume 60 to 124 billion litres directly in 2028.

Global projections point higher. A team led from UC Riverside projects global AI demand could account for 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic metres of water withdrawal in 2027, in Li, Yang, Islam and Ren. That is 4.2 to 6.6 trillion litres worldwide. It is a projection of withdrawal, not consumption, so it cannot be set directly against California orchard water. It does show the gap could narrow if AI keeps growing.

Chart

Water: US data centres and California almonds

Billion litres per year; data centres are consumed water, almonds are applied water; indirect bar is nearly 800

Water per prompt and water per kilogram of almonds

Google reports that the median text prompt in its Gemini app uses 0.24 watt-hours of energy and consumes 0.26 millilitres of water, about five drops, in its May 2025 measurement. Google derived the water figure from energy use and its 2024 fleet-wide water usage effectiveness. It says the figures have not been verified by an independent third party, and they describe one product, not all AI.

The Pacific Institute puts California almonds at 520 to 560 gallons of water per pound, which is about 4,300 to 4,700 litres per kilogram of kernels. At 0.26 millilitres a prompt, one kilogram of almonds holds the irrigation water of roughly 17 million such prompts. One almond kernel is about 1.6 to 1.7 gallons, or around 6 litres, which equals more than 20,000 prompts. A single prompt is tiny. The totals differ because almonds are grown on 1.4 million acres and AI is queried billions of times a day, so the calculator below lets you set both.

Prompt counts and model sizes change quickly, so treat the 0.26 millilitre figure as one dated data point.

Almond, walnut and pistachio water use per kilogram

The standard global source for water per kilogram of crop is the Water Footprint Network’s report by Mekonnen and Hoekstra, The green, blue and grey water footprint of crops and derived crop products (December 2010, data for 1996 to 2005). It splits the footprint into green water (rain used by the crop), blue water (irrigation and other surface or groundwater consumed) and grey water (water needed to dilute pollution). These are global averages, not California numbers.

Walnuts have the smallest total footprint per kilogram, shelled or in shell. Almonds have the largest total, because the global average includes a lot of rain. Pistachios tell a different story. Their blue-water figure, 7,602 litres per kilogram, is higher than either almond figure (3,816 shelled, 1,908 in shell), even though pistachio trees tolerate drought. Pistachios are drought-hardy, but in this dataset they are the most irrigated of the three per kilogram. The report lists pistachios as one product, so there is no shelled and in-shell split.

Compare nuts on the same basis. Shelled almonds at 16,095 litres per kilogram and in-shell walnuts at 4,918 are not comparable, since shelling removes most of the weight.

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Water per kilogram: irrigation share against total

Litres per kilogram, global averages 1996 to 2005

Why the per-kilogram numbers differ so much

Three things move the number. The first is the basis: in shell or shelled, green plus blue plus grey, or irrigation only. The second is place: global averages blend rain-fed orchards with irrigated ones. A California almond orchard gets little rain in summer, so most of its water is blue. The Water Footprint Network average for almonds is 4,632 litres of green water per kilogram in shell, against 1,908 of blue. The Pacific Institute’s California figure counts irrigation only, which is why it sits at about 4,300 to 4,700 litres per kilogram of kernels while the global total is 16,095.

The third is time. The Water Footprint Network data cover 1996 to 2005, and yields have changed since. Use these figures to compare crops with each other, not to audit a specific orchard.

How much water each orchard uses in the field

Per-kilogram numbers hide how much water an orchard needs in a season. For walnuts, the UC Cooperative Extension irrigation guide by Culumber and Fulton lists seasonal evapotranspiration (ET) of 40.0 inches, or 3.3 acre-feet per acre, for a mature orchard with 70 to 80 percent canopy shading. That is evaporation from the soil plus water the trees transpire. Young orchards use less: 21.3 inches in the second leaf and 38.5 inches in the third.

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California bearing nut acreage

Thousand acres; almonds and walnuts 2025, pistachios 2024

The almond figure above, 44 to 48 inches (Pacific Institute, citing UC Davis and DWR), is a few inches higher than the walnut figure. The two sources measure slightly different things: one is applied water, the other seasonal ET, so do not subtract one from the other. What both show is that a mature nut orchard needs roughly 3.3 to 4 acre-feet per acre every year, with no fallow season.

Area changes the totals. The UC Davis tree nut market report (January 2026) shows California’s bearing area at about 1.40 million acres for almonds (2025), 380,205 acres for walnuts (2025) and 489,000 acres for pistachios (2024). Almonds therefore use the most water in total, even where the per-acre need is similar.

Water use through an orchard’s life

Water need rises as the canopy fills the orchard floor. The walnut table shows the pattern for Chandler trees on a standard planting; other varieties and spacings will differ.

By the third leaf the orchard’s seasonal ET is already close to the mature figure.

▶ How satellites and the NDWI index show water content in crops from space. · 7:57

Can AI and satellites cut orchard water use?

Irrigation can be tuned to what the trees actually lose. Satellites estimate ET for each orchard block, and growers compare it with soil moisture or tree water-stress readings. A USGS-listed study of OpenET in California almonds compared satellite ET with eddy-covariance flux towers on almond orchards and found reasonable agreement on daily values (R-squared 0.73), with the main weak spot being short dips such as the harvest period (Knipper et al., 2024). A wider test across 152 flux towers found orchard errors of about 17 percent, more variable than for annual crops, in a Desert Research Institute summary of a Nature Water study.

So satellite ET is a guide, not a meter. It shows where an orchard block is using more or less than its neighbours, and it flags change over the season. It does not tell you the cause. Check it against soil probes or a pressure chamber before changing a schedule.

How much can better scheduling save? The Pacific Institute notes that regulated deficit irrigation, which deliberately holds back water at set growth stages, can cut almond water use by 30 percent or more, but is not widely applied yet and can affect yield and quality. The saving is a property of the method, not of AI. Satellite and sensor tools help a grower use such methods with less guesswork.

Aeroponics, which grows roots in a nutrient mist, suits small plants such as nursery stock and leafy greens. Almond, walnut and pistachio trees take years to bear and have deep roots, so orchard savings come from field irrigation, not from mist chambers.

Farmonaut shows satellite vegetation and moisture indexes, such as NDVI and NDWI, for fields you draw on a map, through its web and mobile apps and its API. These indexes show changes in canopy and water content. Pair them with field checks.

▶ What the NDWI and MNDWI water indexes measure, shown on a real orchard block. · 2:45

Calculator: orchard water against AI prompts

Use the calculator below to set an orchard against a stream of AI prompts. Defaults are examples, not benchmarks.

Try the numbers for your own farm below.

What this means for growers and for AI debates

1. Know your own number. Work out inches applied per season and divide by yield. Compare it with the 4,300 to 4,700 litres per kilogram range for California almonds.
2. Check against ET. Use your extension service’s ET reports or satellite ET to see whether your schedule follows the trees’ needs.
3. Use sensors for decisions. Soil moisture or stem water potential tells you what satellites cannot.
4. Compare nuts per acre, not only per kilogram. Local yield and shelling change the ranking.
5. Read AI water claims with the basis in mind. Direct versus indirect water, one product versus all AI, and consumption versus withdrawal change the result by orders of magnitude.

Check local water rules and your water district’s allocations before you change an irrigation schedule, and get professional advice for financial decisions on crop changes.

▶ Seven green farming technologies for saving water, fuel and fertilizer. · 2:24

How we checked the numbers

Every figure above comes from a source we opened in October 2026. We used the publisher’s own number, not a news summary. Where two sources disagree, as with the Pacific Institute (3.1 million acre-feet, 2010) and C-WIN (4.7 to 5.5 million acre-feet, 2024), we show both and say why they differ: year, acreage and method. C-WIN is an advocacy group, so we show its figure beside the older research estimate and our own multiplication of acreage by inches, which overlaps its range.

We converted acre-feet to litres at 1,233 cubic metres per acre-foot. We did not convert Google’s per-prompt figure into an annual total, because the number of prompts served is not published. The calculator lets you try your own assumption instead.

FAQ

Do almonds use more water than AI?

Yes, on current data. California almonds use roughly 3.8 to 6.8 trillion litres of applied water a year in the estimates above. US data centres consumed 66 billion litres directly and nearly 800 billion litres indirectly in 2023 (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). The comparison mixes applied and consumed water, and the data centre figure covers all uses, not AI alone.

How much water does one AI prompt use?

Google reports 0.26 millilitres of water for the median Gemini Apps text prompt in May 2025. The company has not had the number verified by an independent party. Other models and other data centres can differ.

Which nut uses the least water per kilogram?

Walnuts have the smallest global footprint in the Water Footprint Network data: 4,918 litres per kilogram in shell and 9,280 shelled, against 16,095 for shelled almonds and 11,363 for pistachios. Pistachios have the highest blue-water figure. These are global averages for 1996 to 2005.

How many litres does it take to grow a kilogram of almonds in California?

The Pacific Institute estimates 520 to 560 gallons per pound, about 4,300 to 4,700 litres per kilogram of kernels, of applied water. The global footprint including rain and pollution dilution is 16,095 litres per kilogram.

Can satellites reduce irrigation water?

They can help growers schedule irrigation by estimating ET, but they are less exact for orchards than for annual crops, with errors near 17 percent in a 152-tower test. Use them with soil or plant measurements.

Do walnuts use less water per acre than almonds?

Slightly less on the numbers we found. UC Cooperative Extension lists 40.0 inches of seasonal evapotranspiration for a mature walnut orchard, and the Pacific Institute cites 44 to 48 inches of applied water for almonds. The two measure different things, so the gap is indicative only. Local weather, soil, rootstock and irrigation method change both.

Related pages on our site: carbon footprint tracking, product traceability, fleet management, crop loan and insurance verification, the agro admin app, the satellite and weather API docs and the Farmonaut apps.