Vital for millions of inhabitants of the region, water is a crucial stake in the conflict in the Middle East, in the context in which the belligerents have begun to attack seawater desalination installations, with the risk of provoking an escalation of the conflict, with dramatic consequences. In this arid region, “the first who dares to attack the water starts a war” with potentially terrible consequences for the civilian population, according to an expert quoted by AFP.
A desalination plant in Bahrain was damaged by an Iranian drone attack on Sunday, authorities said, a day after Iranian allegations of a similar attack on Iran's Qeshm Island that affected the water supply of 30 villages. These attacks are still limited, but “the first one who dares to attack water will trigger a much more devastating war than today's,” warns Esther Crauser-Delbourg, water economist, according to News.ro.
Why is desalinated water important?
In one of the driest regions of the world, where water availability is ten times lower than the global average, according to the World Bank, desalination plants play a vital role for the economy and the drinking water consumption of millions of inhabitants.
About 42% of the world's desalination capacity is in the Middle East, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature.
In the United Arab Emirates, 42% of drinking water comes from these plants, 90% in Kuwait, 86% in Oman and 70% in Saudi Arabia, details a 2022 note by the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
“There, without desalinated water, there is nothing,” sums up Esther Crauser-Delbourg. Water is a resource of particular strategic importance in large metropolises such as Dubai and Riyadh.
Already in 2010, a CIA analysis note stated that “disruption of desalination facilities in most Arab countries could have more serious consequences than the loss of any other industry or raw material.”
And in 2008, the WikiLeaks website revealed a US diplomatic cable that said “Riyadh should evacuate within a week” if the Jubail desalination plant that supplies it or its oil pipelines were “severely damaged or destroyed”.
What threats are looming
In addition to the attacks reported this weekend, these plants are vulnerable to power outages that supply them and to possible contamination of seawater, especially black tides, say several experts consulted by AFP.
“We have strengthened access security and controls in the immediate perimeter of the factories,” Philippe Bourdeaux, director of the Africa/Middle East area of the French company Veolia, which supplies desalinated water to the regions of Muscat, Sour and Salalah in Oman and Jubail in Saudi Arabia, told AFP.
“Recent events, of course, lead us to be very careful. We are following the situation of the installations very carefully,” he adds, stating that “in some countries the authorities have placed missile batteries around the largest factories, against the threat posed by drones or missiles”.
Regarding oil spills, operators have tools to reduce the negative effects.
What are the precedents?
There have been several attacks on desalination plants in the past decade: Yemen and Saudi Arabia have attacked each other, and Gaza has suffered Israeli attacks, reports the Pacific Institute, a California think tank that keeps a record of water conflicts.
Before 2016, we have to go back to 1991 and the Gulf War to see such attacks.
What are the effects in the event of an attack?
The effects in case of an attack can vary from point disruptions to much more serious consequences if they last.
“It is possible to witness an exodus from the big cities. And then rationalizations,” outlines possible scenarios Esther Crauser-Delbourg, with chain effects on the economy: tourism, industry and data centers, which consume a lot of water to be cooled.
There are safeguards, says Philippe Bourdeaux of Veolia, trying to temper the panic: desalination plants are often interconnected, which can limit the consequences of a single plant shutdown, he explains. And he adds that, in general, they have in reserve consumption for several days, from two to seven, enough to limit the shortage, as long as the interruptions do not last too long.
