Roughly 80% of the water evaporates into the atmosphere. The remaining 20% is flushed out of the system to remove mineral build-ups and sent to local treatment plants.
The previously stated 80/20 isn't a bad general estimate, but it varies depending on the specific site. 10%-25% of makeup water being lost to blowdown is a reasonable range.
As for papers about it, I was only able to find a few in my brief search, but they don't land on a single number since it depends on the ratio of dissolved minerals/solids in the circulating cooling-tower water compared with the incoming makeup water, which varies due to acceptability for the process and due to the incoming water quality.
This short PDF on "Mechanical Systems Water Efficiency Management" from the EPA goes over the concepts pretty well though
- https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2017-12/documents/ws...
This document from the US DOD (UFM 3-230-13, Industrial Water Treatment Operation and Maintenance (2026), Chapter 5) says that most cooling towers operate at 3-10 CoC, with 5-7 CoC identified as a cost-effective range. Where CoC is Cycles of concentration described in the previous PDF, and a higher CoC means less blowdown and better water efficiency, with the trade-off of a greater risk of scaling, corrosion, and biological/water-chemistry problems.
- https://www.wbdg.org/FFC/DOD/UFC/ufm_3_230_13_2026.pdf
Veolia also has a "Open Recirculating Cooling Systems" handbook that shows some good examples with real numbers in table 31-1.
- https://www.watertechnologies.com/handbook/chapter-31-open-r...