How water has emerged as the newest battlefield in US-Iran conflict

Water infrastructure is the latest strategic target in the conflict between the United States and Iran.

The latest escalation follows renewed hostilities after the collapse of the June Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), an agreement that had temporarily eased tensions before fighting resumed around the Strait of Hormuz.

Alongside conventional military strikes, campaigns targeting water utilities have also escalated, signalling that essential civilian infrastructure has become part of the battlefield.

Why has water become the latest battlefield?

Water production and distribution systems have become targets because they represent an indispensable service in a region where natural freshwater is exceptionally limited.

Unlike oil exports, which mainly influence international markets, damage to desalination facilities directly affects civilian populations by disrupting access to drinking water.

On Friday, Iran launched missile and drone attacks against several American partners and military-related facilities across the Persian Gulf after a week of intensive US bombing campaigns aimed at weakening Tehran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

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Among the targets was a major combined power generation and water desalination facility in Kuwait. Kuwaiti authorities said the attack damaged numerous electricity generation units and triggered a significant fire at the complex.

Emergency teams succeeded in bringing the blaze under control before it spread further, but the government nevertheless activated emergency contingency plans.

Officials also instructed residents to reduce both electricity and water consumption while repair work continued, reflecting concerns over the facility's importance to the country's public utilities.

For Kuwait, such attacks carry massive consequences because approximately 90 per cent of its drinking water is produced through desalination. Any disruption therefore extends beyond electricity generation and has the potential to affect household water supplies.

The attack also demonstrated the vulnerability of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries whose desalination facilities are concentrated along coastlines that remain within the operational range of Iranian missiles and drones.

Almost simultaneously, American forces targeted a desalination facility in Bunji village in Iran's southeastern Hormozgan province after broadening their list of objectives beyond military sites to include infrastructure with dual civilian and logistical functions.

According to the Hormozgan Water and Wastewater Company, the strike destroyed the plant's filtration equipment and pumping systems.

The disruption reportedly left around 10,000 residents across 20 surrounding villages without access to running drinking water, creating an immediate humanitarian challenge as the region continued to experience extreme summer temperatures.

Earlier in the conflict, Kuwait reported damage affecting the Doha West desalination plant after debris from intercepted drones or attacks near a nearby port struck the area.

Iran has also accused the United States of targeting desalination facilities on Qeshm Island on March 8, claiming that water supplies to 30 villages were interrupted, although Washington did not acknowledge carrying out such an operation.

Beyond the direct confrontation between Washington and Tehran, desalination facilities have also featured in regional conflicts involving Iranian-backed groups.

Yemen's Houthi rebels have previously targeted Saudi desalination infrastructure during periods of heightened regional tension, illustrating that these facilities have long been viewed as strategically valuable objectives.

Their importance extends far beyond supplying drinking water.

Without desalination plants, many of the Gulf's largest cities would struggle to sustain their existing populations, while industries, healthcare systems, commercial districts and tourism infrastructure would all face immediate disruption.

Why are Gulf countries so dependent on desalination?

The Persian Gulf region is among the most water-stressed parts of the world.

The United Nations defines absolute water scarcity as having less than 500 cubic metres of renewable freshwater available per person every year. Most GCC countries possess less than 100 cubic metres annually, placing them well below that threshold.

Despite these natural limitations, the region has experienced decades of rapid urbanisation, industrial expansion, population growth and economic diversification. Supporting those developments has required governments to construct an extensive artificial water supply system rather than relying on natural freshwater resources.

Today, more than 400 desalination plants operate along the coastlines of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.

Together, these facilities account for roughly 45 per cent of global desalinated water production, making the region the world's largest concentration of seawater desalination infrastructure.

For many countries, desalination is not simply one source of water among several alternatives. It is the principal system that allows modern cities to function.

The region contains less than two per cent of the world's renewable freshwater resources while supporting a population exceeding 62 million people.

Natural aquifers have been extensively exploited over many decades, while permanent rivers and lakes remain largely absent across much of the Arabian Peninsula. Consequently, municipal drinking water networks are almost entirely disconnected from natural freshwater systems.

Instead, seawater drawn from the Gulf or the Arabian Sea is processed continuously before entering distribution networks that serve households, businesses and public institutions.

The degree of reliance differs slightly from country to country but remains exceptionally high throughout the region.

Qatar depends on desalination for more than 99 per cent of its municipal drinking water, with the remaining supply coming primarily from groundwater reserves that have themselves been heavily depleted and are used mainly for agriculture.

Bahrain also relies on desalination for more than 90 per cent of its drinking water. As an island nation with limited freshwater resources, it possesses few practical alternatives to its coastal desalination network.

Kuwait similarly obtains about 90 per cent of its municipal drinking water through desalination plants that are closely integrated with oil-fired electricity generation facilities.

Oman produces roughly 86 per cent of its drinking water through desalination. Its mountainous terrain makes transporting water from coastal plants to inland communities technically demanding and financially expensive.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, remains the world's largest producer of desalinated water. Around 70 per cent of its municipal drinking water originates from desalination facilities situated along its coast before being transported hundreds of miles inland through extensive pipeline systems to major cities including Riyadh.

The United Arab Emirates presents a slightly different picture. While groundwater continues to support parts of the agricultural sector, the country's principal urban centres—including Dubai and Abu Dhabi — depend overwhelmingly on desalinated seawater for municipal consumption. Overall, between 42 and 45 per cent of the UAE's water supply comes from desalination.

Iran's dependence is more geographically concentrated. Although large parts of the country rely on other water sources, southern coastal provinces such as Hormozgan are considerably more dependent on desalination because of their arid conditions and limited access to inland freshwater reserves.

This explains why attacks on facilities in Hormozgan can have immediate consequences for nearby communities even if they do not affect the country's wider water system.

The concentration of desalination infrastructure along coastlines creates another challenge. Hundreds of facilities are situated close to the Persian Gulf, placing them within range of short-range ballistic missiles, drones and other precision-guided weapons.

What happens when desalination plants stop functioning?

In the Gulf, where water production is concentrated in a relatively small number of coastal facilities, even a temporary disruption can trigger cascading effects across multiple sectors of society.

Unlike an oil refinery, where a shutdown primarily affects fuel production and commercial activity, a desalination plant supplies a resource that households, hospitals, emergency services and industries require every hour of every day.

Once production stops, governments begin drawing upon strategic reserves, but those reserves are finite.

Most Gulf countries maintain emergency water stocks in underground reservoirs or specially designed storage tanks. These reserves are intended to provide a buffer during technical failures or natural disasters rather than sustain prolonged military disruptions.

The timeline following a major outage can therefore unfold rapidly.

During the first one to three days, countries with particularly high levels of dependence — such as Bahrain or Qatar — would be forced to introduce strict rationing measures as authorities attempt to conserve remaining supplies.

Municipal consumption would be prioritised, while restrictions on industrial and commercial use could become necessary. If repairs cannot be completed quickly, conditions become more difficult between the fourth and seventh day.

Large sections of the population could find themselves without reliable access to safe drinking water, particularly during summer periods when daytime temperatures regularly exceed 45°C (113°F).

Extended shortages would significantly increase the risks associated with dehydration while also placing additional pressure on emergency services and public health systems.

Why is water security inseparable from energy security?

Another reason desalination plants have become strategically important is their close integration with electricity generation. Across much of the Gulf, desalination facilities and thermal power stations operate as cogeneration systems, with each relying on the other to function efficiently.

Many thermal desalination plants utilise waste heat produced by nearby oil- or gas-fired power stations to convert seawater into freshwater.

At the same time, those power stations depend on high-quality desalinated water for boiler feed systems and cooling operations that keep generating equipment functioning safely.

This interconnected relationship means damage to one part of the system can quickly affect the other.

If intake pumps, filtration systems or processing equipment at a desalination plant are disabled, associated power stations may have to reduce electricity generation or suspend operations altogether to avoid severe thermal damage to critical equipment.

Consequently, an attack directed at water production can also result in power shortages.

Desalination facilities themselves are also complex systems made up of numerous interconnected components.

Water must first be drawn from the sea before passing through intake structures, treatment units, filtration systems, pumping stations and energy supply networks. Damage to any one of these stages can interrupt the entire production process even if the remaining infrastructure remains intact.

Modern desalination increasingly relies on reverse osmosis, a process that removes salt by forcing seawater through extremely fine membranes capable of filtering dissolved salts and impurities.

While highly efficient, these membranes are also delicate and expensive to replace, making the technology particularly vulnerable during conflict.

If military operations damage oil tankers or other vessels carrying petroleum products, resulting oil slicks can spread across coastal waters where desalination plants draw seawater into their intake systems.

Should crude oil or chemical contamination reach these intake points, operators may have no alternative but to suspend production immediately.

Allowing contaminated seawater to enter reverse osmosis systems can irreparably damage the specialised polymer membranes responsible for removing salt.

Replacing those membranes is both technically demanding and time-consuming, meaning even facilities that suffer no direct physical damage may remain out of service for extended periods.

What about cyber warfare?

American authorities have warned that Iranian-affiliated cyber actors are actively targeting water and wastewater systems, prompting coordinated alerts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Rather than relying solely on conventional malware, investigators say many operations have focused on exploiting weaknesses in operational technology used to manage water treatment facilities.

Central to these systems are Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), which automatically regulate pumping stations, treatment processes and other essential functions inside modern desalination and water distribution plants.

According to the warnings issued by US agencies, attackers have increasingly employed a technique commonly described as "living off the land."

Instead of introducing obvious malicious software, operators use legitimate programming tools to access exposed PLCs. By appearing to conduct routine maintenance activities, they can blend into ordinary network traffic while carrying out unauthorised actions.

The techniques highlighted by US authorities include wiping configuration files that determine when pumps activate or shut down, effectively forcing systems offline.

Other operations involve manipulating digital sensor readings displayed on Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), allowing plant operators to believe equipment is functioning normally even as failures develop elsewhere within the system.

US officials have also pointed to similarities with an earlier cyber operation directed at Israeli water infrastructure.

During that incident, Iranian-linked hackers allegedly used international proxy servers to infiltrate pumping software and attempted to increase chlorine concentrations entering civilian water supplies without operators immediately detecting the changes.

Although the techniques differ from conventional military attacks, the potential consequences remain serious because they target the systems responsible for delivering safe drinking water.

In response, the Environmental Protection Agency has urged American water utilities to remove critical PLCs from direct internet exposure wherever possible and implement strong multi-factor authentication for authorised users.

What do previous assessments and international law say?

Governments and security agencies have recognised for years that these installations represent critical points of national infrastructure. A 2010 assessment produced by the Central Intelligence Agency warned that attacks on desalination facilities could create national emergencies across several Gulf countries.

The report concluded that prolonged disruptions would be possible if key equipment were destroyed. It also noted that more than 90 per cent of the Gulf's desalinated water originated from only 56 facilities, making regional water supplies heavily concentrated.

According to the assessment, "each of these critical plants is extremely vulnerable to sabotage or military action."

International humanitarian law has also long recognised the special status of facilities that sustain civilian life.

Geneva Conventions Protocol I, Article 54 (Paragraph 2), states: "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas... drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works..."

The provision reflects the principle that access to essential resources should remain protected even during armed conflict.

With inputs from agencies