The Danger of Attacking Desalination Facilities in the Gulf

(SeaPRwire) –   As the war in Iran enters its fifth week, U.S. President Donald Trump has warned that if a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is not reached soon, the United States could escalate attacks to target critical civilian infrastructure inside the country.  

In a Monday post on Truth Social, the president stated that without an agreement, the U.S. would “end our nice ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely destroying all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalination plants!), which we have intentionally not yet ‘touched.’”

Experts caution that targeting infrastructure, especially desalination plants that supply drinking water to civilians, could open up a dangerous new front in modern warfare. 

What do desalination plants do?

Desalination plants turn saltwater into fresh water, filtering out salt and other minerals through a process called reverse osmosis. They are most often used to produce drinking water, or supply water that meets standards for irrigation and industrial applications. 

“Some parts of the world may not have enough drinking water, but those same regions often have access to oceans or brackish groundwater,” says Auroop Ganguly, a professor at Northeastern University whose research focuses on infrastructure resilience for sustainability and security. 

Which countries have desalination plants?

A wide range of countries, from the Maldives to the Bahamas to Malta, depend on desalination to meet part or all of their total water needs. The Gulf region, with its hot desert climate, ranks among the most water-scarce regions in the world. The six Gulf states, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, use desalination to supply fresh water to a combined population of 62 million people.

If the war escalates, damage to desalination facilities could put these countries in grave danger, leaving them unable to deliver fresh drinking water to their residents. 

Early in the conflict, desalination facilities in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates sustained indirect damage from missile and drone strikes, while plants in Bahrain and Iran have reportedly been targeted intentionally.

In March, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of bombing a desalination plant that supplied water to 30 villages, though the U.S. government denied responsibility. Iran has also reportedly attacked a desalination plant in Bahrain. (Iran claimed Israel was behind the attack.)

Is Iran dependent on desalination plants?

Experts note that Iran does not rely on desalination to the same degree as other countries in the region. Even before the war started, however, the country was already facing a severe water crisis driven by drought, climate change, and poor management of its water resources. 

Ganguly warns that the importance of desalination plants will only grow more critical alongside climate change. “With droughts, climate change, urbanization, and population growth, water access is getting worse in other parts of Iran as well. Dependence on desalination plants is lower here, but it is growing,” he says. “One of the most significant, if not the most significant, issues facing the Middle East is how to address water scarcity.”

This is a long-simmering issue, but further attacks on desalination plants in the Gulf could make the region’s water problems impossible to ignore. “If you disrupt desalination plants in other regional countries, millions of people could be forced to relocate. Iran, by contrast, would not face that level of immediate disruption,” says Matin Mirramezani, project manager of Stanford University’s Iran 2040 project. “For Iran, the problem is mostly long-term, while for other Gulf countries, the issue would be far more critical and far more immediate.”

Why does targeting desalination plants during war matter?

Under the Geneva Conventions, targeting civilian infrastructure can be classified as a war crime. 

While a U.S. attack on Iranian desalination plants may not have a major impact on the country’s overall water supply, the far greater danger emerges if Iran retaliates by striking desalination plants across the Gulf, which could severely cut off water access for neighboring countries. 

Normalizing attacks on civilian infrastructure also sets a dangerous precedent. “When it becomes acceptable for one country like the U.S. to do this, it also becomes acceptable for Iran to do the same to any other country it views as a threat, and it becomes standard practice in future wars,” says Ganguly. “Ordinary people are the ones who will suffer. This has the potential to cause massive widespread disruption that will not stay confined to any country’s borders.”