Since the start of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran at the end of February, drone and missile attacks have spread across several Gulf countries and have caused damage to all types of infrastructure: military bases or oil terminals, but also to especially sensitive infrastructure throughout this area: desalination plants. On March 2, Iran attacked the port of Jebel Ali in Dubai. Just 20 kilometers away, a complex of 43 desalination units produces 650,000 million liters of water for the city. There have been attacks by Iran on a desalination plant in Bahrain and another by the United States on a plant on the island of Qeshm, in the Strait of Hormuz, which serves 30 towns.
The Gulf area is one of the driest regions in the world. Access to water is ten times less than the global average, according to the UN. Most of the countries in the area are desert and their orography is flat; The absence of mountains makes it impossible to store water. The case of Iran is somewhat different: due to its relief, it has rivers and reservoirs. However, six consecutive years of drought have reduced the capacity of its reservoirs to less than 5%. At the end of 2025, in fact, the authorities returned to an old plan: the possible evacuation of Tehran, a city of 17 million inhabitants, due to water shortages.
That is why it is not surprising that the countries that make up the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (made up of all the governments of the region except Iran and Iraq) produce up to 60% of the world’s total desalinated water. Kuwait depends 90% on this resource, followed by Oman, with 86%, and Saudi Arabia, with 70%. Furthermore, forecasts suggest that by 2030 desalination capacity could double throughout the Middle East region.
30 plants for 70 million
One hundred million inhabitants depend on some 450 desalination plants or, if we talk about volumes,» Some 30 facilities support the drinking water supply of 70 million people. Today there are more than 16,000 desalination plants in the world, which produce approximately 95 million m3 of drinking water per day. Gulf countries obtain between 50% and 99% of their drinking water from these plants. Any of the weapons used in this conflict – from cruise missiles to attack drones or ballistic missiles – could hit these facilities and, no matter how many water reserves each country has, within 24 hours the distribution of water to hospitals and other vital infrastructure begins to be paralyzed. In a matter of hours, industrial activity follows, which would be paralyzed. If attacks on desalination plants become normal it would be a complete disaster,” comments Fernando Novo, an expert consultant in comprehensive management of water resources and facility security. Several media outlets point in the same direction: if attacking desalination plants becomes a war strategy, the humanitarian consequences could be very serious, with entire cities on the brink of exodus.
The oil and water relationship
The history of human and financial development of this area is linked to oil, which has not only served to generate wealth but also, as an international media outlet points out, to manufacture water. Desalination began in 1890 to meet the water needs of pilgrims to Mecca, according to the Arab Center in Washington, DC. However, the boom in modern plants came after 1973 and the oil crisis. “The increase in prices financed the construction of plants,” they point out, and also helps to keep them in operation today. “Saudi Arabia, the center explains, uses 300,000 barrels of oil a day to desalinate water.”
The entity also alludes to two possible, and antagonistic, scenarios derived from betting on desalination. «Desalination diplomacy can become an important political tool. When you rely on seawater rather than river water, tensions between coastal states are reduced, as has been the case between Ethiopia and Egypt. But it can also become a cause of political conflict and concern about water security. «The Gulf has offshore oil platforms and the largest oil tankers in the world circulate through its waters. Any oil spill would have the potential to disrupt the water supply of several Gulf countries due to water contamination. Furthermore, the location of desalination plants on the coast makes them particularly vulnerable. A phase of serious attacks on this type of assets has not yet been reached and it is not advisable to reach it,” says Yago Rodríguez, analyst, disseminator of defense issues and director of The Political Room.
Desalination was the region’s commitment as the only possible way for its development, but that has created imbalances in the complex equation of sustainable development, the Arab Center also warns. Despite the abundance of crude oil, the high energy consumption of desalination plants was pushing the economies of the area to link these large drinking water production plants to renewable facilities, in an attempt to disassociate themselves from fossil fuels. This is the case, for example, of the Neom city project, in Saudi Arabia, which foresees the construction of a large desalination plant to supply the future population of the city.
The urban project has become decaffeinated in recent years and in the case of desalinated water it contemplated feeding it not only to citizens, but also golf courses and a ski slope open all year round in the middle of the desert. «The annual per capita water use in the Cooperation Council countries is 560 liters per day, compared to a world average of 180 liters. In the World Cup in Qatar, each soccer field consumed 10,000 liters of water,” adds the center.
In a desert area and with the danger that desalination plants represent in the event of conflict, it is not surprising that in recent years the discourse of the circular water economy was beginning to take hold. An example is the artificial river created in Saudi Arabia from the two million cubic meters of water consumed in Riyadh every day and which purifies a plant in the Manfouha district. Furthermore, in 2020 the Rethink Brine project appeared, an initiative by the United Arab Emirates to reward innovative uses for brine discharge, another of the problems that has caused the expansion of these facilities in the region. “GCC countries have been slower to establish water reuse infrastructure and wastewater treatment plants,” notes the center, recalling that 55% of the world’s brine is produced by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.
More conflicts over water
The Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security warns that Water-related conflicts have increased dramatically in the last fifteen years. In 2024, 420 were registered, compared to 355 in 2023, 18% more. The destruction of wells in the Gaza Strip and other infrastructure, along with the lack of fuel for desalination plants, has condemned 96% of households to water insecurity, media headlines noted just a few months ago. The destruction in June 2023 of the Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine released millions of cubic meters of water, flooding entire villages and depriving thousands of hectares of crops of sustenance. Y no son los únicos ejemplos cercanos. In Syria and Iraq, during the expansion of the Islamic State, the Tabqa and Mosul dams were also the subject of fighting. “Whoever controls the water controls the electricity, the crops and, ultimately, the survival of the population,” says the entity.
These days the First Gulf War is also remembered. In 1991, when the Iraqi army withdrew from Kuwait, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein destroyed the country’s desalination plant and released Kuwaiti oil into the Persian Gulf.
A new Prestige
►The duration of this war or the depth of its consequences is unknown, but alarms go off every day on different fronts: humanitarian, financial or environmental. One of the risks that voices like that of Yago Rodríguez (who cites Royal Navy Dr. Rafael Muñoz Abad) warn about is the increase in the circulation of ghost flag ships near the Spanish coast: «Attacks on ships or the Strait of Hormuz being closed means that international navigation is redirected through Africa and there is much higher traffic than usual in the Canary Islands, the Strait and even Finisterre. Many belong to the so-called ghost fleet: ships with flags of convenience, sometimes without a flag, with front companies that do not respond in case of emergency nor will they pay for a tow. They are ships waiting to suffer an accident. We already had the example of the Chariot Tide a few weeks ago. If any of those ships have an accident, it could cause a new ‘Prestige’,” he concludes.