With the war on Iran initiated by the US and Israel entering its tenth day, military strikes by both sides have found a new target: desalination plants.

Both Bahrain and Iran levelled accusations against each other over the weekend. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, accused the US of attacking a desalination plant on Qeshm Island on Saturday, affecting the water supply for 30 villages. On Sunday, Bahrain claimed that an Iranian drone “caused material damage” to a desalination plant in the country, but said there had been “no impact on water supplies or water network capacity.”

Even before the latest conflict, Iran has long faced a water crisis and was forced to initiate water rationing last year after its worst-ever drought in six decades. With concerns about an oil crisis and the cascading disruptions to supply chains globally, the latest strikes have introduced a new avenue of conflict in the escalating war. Here is what to know.

Desalination plants convert saltwater into drinkable water, which can also be used for irrigation and industrial use.

Saline water contains significant concentrations of dissolved salts (ranging up to 35,000 ppm) and is otherwise unfit for human consumption. Given the scarcity of freshwater sources and a growing population, the need for additional water supplies has long been recognised.

The countries of West Asia, in particular, are situated in an arid region with limited surface water sources, such as rivers and lakes.

The use of desalination has been mooted in the US as a means to use a wider variety of water sources. A 2017 US Geological Survey report estimated that the aquifers, which can meet 30% of the country’s water supply needs, could be desalinated for human consumption. It could satisfy nearly 800 years of use at current rates.

So why is desalination not widely adopted? For one, desalination plants are highly energy-intensive and run on electricity generated from liquid fuels or natural gas, generating 500 to 850 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Another concern is that reverse osmosis, the predominant desalination method, generates large quantities of saltwater brine, which are typically discharged into the ocean. These can harm marine habitats and kill sea creatures such as plankton and fish larvae.

West Asian countries’ dependence on desalination plants

According to the International Desalination Association, over 150 countries rely on desalination to produce freshwater. A 2022 report by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) noted that over 21,000 desalination plants operated worldwide, with the sector growing by 6% to 12% annually.

The most important users of desalinated water are in West Asia, at 70% of global capacity, and North Africa (Libya and Algeria), at 6% of global capacity, according to an article by the US Geological Survey.

The majority of Gulf countries (countries adjacent to or in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf) depend on desalinated water for consumption. According to the IFRI report, desalination plants in the UAE supply 42% of the country’s drinking water needs. Such plants meet 90% of Kuwait’s needs, 86% of Oman’s, and 70% of Saudi Arabia’s. The report also anticipated that desalination capacity in West Asia would almost double by 2030.

Damage from Iranian strikes on Dubai’s Jebel Ali port and Fujairah’s F1 power and water complex in the United Arab Emirates, as well as at Kuwait’s Doha West desalination plant in the early days of the present war, has threatened the water supply in these places, the Associated Press reported. Given that most desalination plants in West Asia are integrated with power stations, a strike on these facilities could not only hinder water production but also impact power supply.

A 2008 diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, for instance, flagged that 90% of Riyadh’s drinking water needs were being met by a single desalination plant. The city “would have to evacuate within a week if the plant, its pipelines or associated power infrastructure were seriously damaged or destroyed,” the cable read, adding that “the current structure of the Saudi government could not exist” without the plant. Since then, the Saudi government has taken efforts to significantly expand its water storage and reduce this vulnerability, The New York Times reported.

Iran’s water supply at risk

Unlike other West Asian countries, Iran’s water needs are mostly met by groundwater sources, such as rivers, lakes and underground aquifers. It operates comparatively few desalination plants, including the one on Qeshm Island. However, faced with the continued water crisis, the country is expanding desalination facilities along the southern coast in a bid to pump water inland, the AP report said. This too has been limited, given infrastructure constraints, high energy costs and international sanctions.

Iran has 523 large, operational dams, according to the Iranian National Committee on Large Dams. It is estimated that about 99.6 per cent of the urban population and 82 per cent of the rural population have access to a drinking water supply.

However, after a fifth year of extreme drought, water levels in the country’s five major dams have plunged to about 10% of their capacity, with President Masoud Pezeshkian mooting an evacuation of Tehran if this persisted.

The country saw yet another dry summer last year, marked with low autumnal rainfall. Also to blame are the country’s water management policies. Unchecked dam construction, unsustainable agricultural practices and illegal well drilling have depleted Iran’s water reserves. In Tehran alone, the ground has sunk at 300 mm per year, about 60 times the critical threshold for infrastructure stability and safety, according to a NYT report.

Iranian-origin climate scientist, Kaveh Madani, has also linked the country’s water crisis with the global sanctions on it. His 2020 research paper, “Iran Under Sanctions,” noted that Iran had built its own crude oil refineries when faced with a cessation of petroleum exports and developed its own car industry with inefficient, polluting cars following a ban on car sales to Iran.