The closure of vital shipping lanes for oil and natural gas in the Persian Gulf is rattling the global economy. But there’s an even more vital resource coming under threat from the Iran war: water, drop by drop.
Nearly two weeks into this war, the damage to precious sources of clean water has not been extensive. Still, all sides in this conflict are showing a willingness to strike at these sources.
And the weaponization of water is not entirely new.
Why We Wrote This
The Persian Gulf region is a vital source of oil and gas for the global economy. But the war in Iran is putting scarce water resources for the parched populations there in jeopardy, too.
In recent years, the Houthis in Yemen have targeted Saudi desalination facilities, while Israel has shut off water supplies to the Gaza Strip and damaged most of the water infrastructure in the Palestinian territory. During the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed most of Kuwait’s water-processing infrastructure.
Since the United States and Israel started bombing Iran at the end of February, missiles and drones have hit water supplies in the Arab Gulf states and inside Iran, putting entire populations at greater risk of going dry.
“We have seen minor damage to desalination plants. Some appeared to be targeted, and there is a lot of indirect damage that could be done,” says Natasha Hall, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based think tank. She adds that Gulf states “very well know how vulnerable they are.”
Water as a target
This week, Iranian drones struck a water desalination plant in Bahrain, while Iran said the U.S. attacked a desalination plant on the Iranian island of Qeshm. And in Kuwait, debris from the interception of an Iranian missile damaged another desalination facility.
These incidents have highlighted the parched Gulf’s dependence on desalination, a process that involves pressuring, filtering, or heating up seawater to make it fit for consumption.
There are 400 desalination plants along the coasts of Gulf countries, providing a total of 100 million cubic meters of water (26.4 billion gallons) per day. Many of those facilities are just dozens of miles from Iranian territory.
Desalination accounts for almost all of the drinking water supply in Qatar.
Statistics published by the Saudi Arabia-based Gulf Research Center estimate that 95% of drinking water in Bahrain, 90% in Kuwait, 86% in Oman, 79% in Saudi Arabia, and some 40% in the United Arab Emirates comes from desalinated seawater.
“Without desalination, we wouldn’t have modern-day Doha, Dubai, or large cities developed in Saudi Arabia,” says Raha Hakimdavar, hydrologist and senior adviser at Georgetown University in Qatar. She adds that desalination has effectively powered the Gulf’s “boom in the last 20 years and is foundational to the concerted efforts to diversify their economies.”
“Unfortunately, desalination is fragile,” says Mohamed Abdel Hamyd Dawoud, a senior water resource adviser for the Abu Dhabi government who is helping lead the UAE’s emergency response.
“But the Gulf Cooperation Council [collection of Gulf states] is an arid region. We don’t have surface water bodies, we do not have lakes or rivers, and renewable water sources are very scarce. There aren’t many alternatives,” he says.
Another major challenge is the interdependence of water and power generation. Desalination is an energy-intensive process, while access to fresh water resources is critical to oil and gas production.
Iranian attacks that forced Bahrain and Qatar to suspend oil and gas production now risk depriving the Gulf’s mega-desalination plants of the fuel required to keep them running. The same goes for transporting food imports, which Gulf countries rely on, and the ability to irrigate agricultural areas.
The fragile food-water-energy balance for the Gulf region is “almost like being on the International Space Station,” notes Dr. Hakimdavar.
The current conflict casts light on a problem that Gulf countries have seen coming for a long time.
Rainfall is projected to decrease 10% to 30% in the Middle East and North Africa over the next century. And the overall population in the region that is living with extreme water scarcity is expected to increase from 83% currently, to 100% by 2050.
Four of the six most water-stressed countries in the world are in the Gulf region, according to the World Resources Institute. They are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar.
Iran, which relies on a mix of desalination, rainwater-fed dams, and rapidly depleting groundwater, is grappling with its sixth consecutive year of drought.
President Masoud Pezeshkian warned the public in an address last November that the drought could force the evacuation of the capital, Tehran, which has about 10 million people.
Emergency plans in place
The Arab Gulf states have spent the past five years preparing for a moment like this. And now, under the threat of missiles and drones, they are enacting emergency measures, managing 21st-century water security in real time during an escalating conflict.
In Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, authorities are preparing to bring a series of small desalination plants on line, with the capacity to process 5,000 to 10,000 cubic meters each day. These plants can run on diesel generators and provide local emergency water supplies.
Many of these plants are located away from the coastline or in underground facilities, designed to withstand a natural disaster. They are also out of reach from Iran’s missiles and drones.
Water supplies already sitting in large pipelines that connect coastal desalination plants to urban centers are also being considered as strategic reserves. In some cases, such as the Saudi pipeline that runs from the eastern coast to Riyadh, these sources could provide enough water to last several days.
Gulf states are prepared to tap into underground aquifers. They are also reviewing rationing plans to potentially reduce the current water allocation from 350 to 550 liters (about 92 to 132 gallons) per capita per day – that is similar to the average daily use in the U.S., Australia, and Canada – to an emergency level of 180 liters per person.
“Countries have built up strategic water reserves of a few days up to a few weeks, and limited groundwater resources can provide an emergency buffer,” says Dr. Hakimdavar, from Doha.
“But they are only buying you some time. They will not be providing a long-term solution.”
Diversify, defend, derisk
Experts in the Gulf have called on their governments to better manage wastewater. Around 40% is discharged, mostly into the sea. This source of water could be treated for use in industry and agriculture.
Long-term, the current crisis points to the need to develop alternative energy sources, such as solar and nuclear, to power desalination plants in the future.
Another key solution, water experts say, is aquifer recharging. This process entails injecting desalinated fresh water into underground aquifers in order to replenish them as strategic water storage. Unlike aboveground concrete, steel, or fiberglass storage facilities, these natural aquifers are not stagnant bodies of water. The water in them can be stored for long periods of time, and is not susceptible to being hit with a missile or drone.
“This is a more viable solution,” says Dr. Dawoud, referring to recharging aquifers. “You only need to build a well,” he says, noting that Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia have started working on such projects.
Yet due to decades of overpumping groundwater, the vast majority of the aquifers in Gulf states are unsuitable for recharging and water storage, experts say, as levels of salinity and other minerals have risen to make any stored water unsuitable for consumption.
Aquifer regeneration projects also take time, around five to seven years.
Shared challenge, shared threat
In the meantime, specialists who work on water resource management are getting together in local, national, and regional emergency meetings, coordinating their water security policies.
“We have good contingency emergency plans in place, we have alternative water backups, but we need to do more to improve the resilience,” says Dr. Dawoud.
Experts are talking about the current Middle East conflict as a possible road map for maintaining water security during a time of war.
“Water is such a fundamental shortage in this region, even more than energy; it is a shared challenge,” says Dr. Hakimdavar. “It is part of our shared history and shared culture.”
“My genuine hope is that this war will not escalate to where water infrastructure is regularly attacked, because the consequences for societies will be profound and long-lasting.”
