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– Author: Nick Ericsson – Role: BBC World Service – Published: 4 hours ago – Reading time: 7 min
Scenes from many dystopian novels and movies depicting conflicts over dwindling natural resources may not be so far from reality, especially since the intensification of the Israel-Iran war.
Unsurprisingly, this conflict is partly linked to oil, a resource long synonymous with Western intervention in the region. But as it expands and involves neighboring Gulf countries, some analysts believe another vulnerable resource has become a potential point of friction: water.
The Gulf region has only 2% of the world’s renewable freshwater reserves and heavily relies on desalination, mainly due to the pressures from the growth of the oil industry since the 1950s and its impact on limited resources.
According to the French Institute of International Relations, 90% of Kuwait’s water comes from desalination, 86% in Oman, 70% in Saudi Arabia, and 42% in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“In 2021, the total production volume of desalination plants drawing water from the Gulf exceeded 20 million cubic meters per day, equivalent to filling 8,000 Olympic pools daily,” explains Dr. Will Le Quesne from the Center for the Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture in Oman, on BBC World Service’s Newsday program.
Agriculture and food production also depend on desalinated water in the Gulf, as groundwater reserves – normally used for irrigation – are heavily depleted throughout the region.
This dependence makes hydraulic infrastructure a strategic vulnerability that the United States and Iran seem ready to exploit.
Analysts describe Tehran’s approach as “horizontal escalation,” aiming to prolong the conflict rather than directly confront the United States and Israel. Targeting hydraulic infrastructure appears to be part of Iran’s strategy, even if presented as a retaliatory measure.
“If Gulf governments feel their hydraulic infrastructure is under attack, they will be more likely to pressure the United States to try and end the war,” explains Professor Marc Owen Jones from Northwestern University in Qatar. Iranian attacks aim to “cause panic,” influencing civilians’ decisions to “stay or leave.”
The Bahrain accuses Iran of directly striking a desalination plant, while Iran claims a prior American strike damaged a water treatment facility on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian attacks on Jebel Ali port in Dubai are said to have also affected an area near one of the world’s largest desalination plants. An alleged fire near the independent F1 hydroelectric plant in Fujairah, UAE, remains operational according to authorities. The West Doha plant in Kuwait is also said to have been indirectly damaged by attacks on neighboring ports or debris from drone strikes.
“For Iran, this is mainly a show of force,” says Professor Kaveh Madani from the United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment, and Health, on BBC World Service.
Iran also portrays any action as a “justified” response to attacks it faces, notably against Bahrain, as a retaliation for the American attack on Qeshm Island.
Any attack on essential hydraulic infrastructure demonstrates Iran’s capabilities and how far it is willing to go in response to American and Israeli military actions.
However, Madani believes Iran’s power lies in the threat of sustained and targeted attacks on the Gulf’s valuable water resources — which not necessarily predict Iran’s future actions. “Water has always been used as a threatening weapon,” he affirms.
Madani refers to Article 45 of the Geneva Convention as a possible explanation for Tehran’s apparent caution towards more direct and manifest attacks on desalination plants in the Gulf, as well as the deliberate presentation of its own attacks as retaliatory.
“The law prohibits attacking civilian infrastructure, but Iran did not start it. This was indicated by Abbas Araghchi’s social media post,” explains Madani, paraphrasing the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Araghchi called the Qeshm Island attack a “dangerous act with serious consequences… a flagrant and desperate crime” that deprived several villages of drinking water.
Whether the conflicts continue or not, these incidents highlight the vulnerability of US-aligned states in terms of water security. Iran is also vulnerable, even if its water supply is more diversified than its Gulf neighbors and therefore less reliant on desalination. Nevertheless, other observers believe any Iranian attack on critical Gulf hydraulic infrastructure could provoke retaliatory measures from Iran.
Iran has been facing an almost absolute water shortage for some time. Low precipitation levels, water leaks from the capital’s century-old hydraulic infrastructure, and a twelve-day war with Israel last year have all contributed to these shortages, says Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi.
The country’s dams are already in a worrisome state, according to Ahmad Vazifeh from Iran’s National Center for Climatic Crisis and Drought Management. Major aquifers are overexploited, rivers like the Zayandeh Rud have seen reduced flow, and Lake Urmia has significantly receded.
Decades of building dams, water-intensive agriculture, and poor management have worsened the situation, according to ecologists like Fred Pearce. In some regions, groundwater extraction has also caused serious land subsidence.
Authorities have even warned that Tehran could one day face rationing or partial evacuation.
According to some researchers, this is both an environmental and security threat, affecting Iran’s internal stability and economic resilience. This situation is exacerbated by weeks of intense conflict with the United States and Israel.
Before the war, Iran’s water scarcity had already contributed to internal unrest, with protests in Khuzestan, Isfahan, and elsewhere reflecting general discontent about the cost of living and the political climate.
Iran’s water issues are also set against a backdrop of regional tensions. The country has long-standing conflicts with Afghanistan over the Helmand River, with Turkey over dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, and with Iraq over shared waterways.
The war highlights the fragility of the Middle East’s water systems, say analysts, and their potential influence on the direction and duration of the conflict. Environmental pressures, combined with factors like oil and gas reserves, now increase the risks of escalation.
Future conflicts in the region may be determined not only by oil pipelines and tankers but also by rivers, aquifers, and desalination plants. In this conflict and beyond, water may be more important than oil.
With contributions from BBC News Persian.
