The Gulf region has been defined by oil for decades. Tankers, pipelines and refineries have long been seen as the region’s most critical – and vulnerable – assets.
In the past few days, US-Israeli strikes hit oil depots in Tehran, with reports emerging of black rain falling for hours afterwards, which has been described in the media as acid rain.
But it is the networks and connections that support access to water and the desalination plants that now sustain daily life.
When oil supplies are restricted and prices escalate, oil “shocks” damage economies. But a water crisis can destabilise societies.
Across the Arabian Peninsula, seawater desalination, which turns saltwater into drinking water, has transformed some of the driest landscapes on Earth into thriving urban societies. Cities such as Dubai, Doha, Kuwait City and Abu Dhabi rely overwhelmingly are massively dependent on desalination plants.
For instance, 70% of Saudi Arabia’s drinking water comes from desalination plants. In Kuwait and Oman the figure is 90%. Without desalination plants, large parts of the region’s modern urban systems would struggle to exist.
Yet this technological achievement has quietly produced a new form of strategic vulnerability. The Gulf‘s water security depends on a relatively small number of massive coastal plants – industrial complexes that operate as the lifelines of entire cities.
The current military conflict has begun to expose this. Missile strikes and drone interceptions have occurred at, or near to, major desalination and water and power complexes in the Gulf. Both Iran and the US have been accused of having targeted these facilities. Even when damage is limited, the proximity of attacks highlights how exposed these facilities are to modern warfare.
Unlike oil pipelines or storage terminals, desalination plants cannot easily be bypassed or replaced. They are fixed, highly complex installations requiring large energy inputs, specialised membranes or thermal systems, and continuous chemical and mechanical treatment processes. Repairing serious damage to a major plant could take months or longer.
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Persian Gulf desalination plants could become military targets in regional war
The consequences of disruption would be immediate. Most cities in the region have limited water storage capacity. If a major desalination plant was out of action, governments could face the prospect of emergency water rationing for millions of residents within a matter of days. Hospitals, sanitation systems, food production and industry would all be affected simultaneously.
This risk is amplified by the region’s underlying water scarcity. The Middle East is among the most water-stressed regions in the world. Rainfall is low and highly variable, while rising temperatures increase evaporation and water demand. Groundwater aquifers have been heavily depleted across much of the region.
In Iran, declining river flows, prolonged drought and over extraction of groundwater have already left dams running dry. Similar pressures exist across other countries where renewable freshwater resources are extremely limited. Desalination has, therefore, evolved from a supplementary technology into the backbone of urban water systems. This shift has produced what might be called “desalination dependency”: a condition in which entire societies rely on a small number of centralised facilities to maintain their basic water supply.
The scale of this dependency is striking. Roughly 100 million people in the wider region depend directly on desalinated water. The Arabian Peninsula alone accounts for a substantial share of global desalination capacity, and the ten of the largest plants in the world are concentrated along the shores of the Gulf and the Red Sea. As water scarcity intensifies in the region, this dependence is likely to grow. But greater reliance also means greater exposure.
Water infrastructure has historically been vulnerable during conflicts. From Iraq to Syria to Yemen, water treatment plants, pumping stations and reservoirs have been damaged or targeted during conflicts. International humanitarian law recognises this danger. Article 54(2) of protocol additional to the Geneva conventions of August 12 1949, and relating to the protection of victims of international armed conflicts (protocol I), states that:
It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
These protections apply to both international and non-international armed conflicts.
Big risks
The humanitarian consequences of disabling these huge desalination plants would be severe. Unlike oil infrastructure, which can sometimes be bypassed through global markets or emergency reserves, urban water supply systems are highly localised. If a desalination plant serving a large metropolitan area was hit and damaged in an attack, there would be few immediate alternatives. Water imports by tanker or emergency desalination units could provide temporary relief, but they could not fully replace the daily output of a large facility.
The ripple effects would extend far beyond drinking water. Sanitation systems would begin to fail, public health risks would rise, and economic activity could slow dramatically. Tourism, industry and services – all pillars of Gulf states’ economies – depend on stable water supplies.
The broader geopolitical implications are equally important. The Gulf is increasingly becoming a testing ground for a new form of infrastructure vulnerability in the age of climate stress: the weaponisation of water production systems. As desalination expands globally – from California and Australia to North Africa and southern Europe – similar vulnerabilities may emerge elsewhere. Coastal megacities facing drought are investing heavily in large desalination facilities to secure future water supplies. The expectations of protection of such infrastructure during conflict will therefore have consequences far beyond the Middle East.
Protecting desalination plants is not merely a regional concern. It is part of a broader challenge of safeguarding the technological systems that sustain modern societies under conditions of environmental scarcity.
Several strategies could reduce risk. Expanding wastewater recycling and replenishing natural water storage areas could diversify water sources. Distributed desalination systems — smaller plants spread across multiple locations — could reduce reliance on single large facilities. Increasing strategic water storage capacity would also provide cities with a buffer against sudden disruptions.
But technical solutions alone cannot address the core issue. The real challenge lies in recognising desalination plants for what they have become: critical humanitarian infrastructure on which entire populations depend.
For much of the 20th century, oil defined the cities of the Gulf. In the 21st century, desalinated water keeps them alive.
Sanam Mahoozi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
