While the US-Israeli military offensive against Iran has focused for the most part on strikes against military assets, a new battlefront is opening up over the Middle East’s most precious resource: water.
The parched region depends heavily on desalination plants that convert seawater into drinking water.
Tehran claims that the US targeted an Iranian desalination plant on Qeshm island in the south of the country in an air strike last weekend. This affected water supply to about 30 villages, according to Iranian authorities.
“The US set this precedent, not Iran,” Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, in a social media post.
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The US has rejected the claims.
Iran responded with drone strikes on a Bahraini desalination plant, which was damaged but has continued to function.
Iran has also been accused of targeting the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah water and power complex and Kuwait’s Doha West desalination plant. Both were damaged by debris from intercepted drones or missiles.
Water scarcity has made desalination existential for the population of this region.
A 202O study by the Gulf Research Centre found that desalinated water, combined with groundwater, accounts for 90 per cent of the region’s chief potable water sources.
Desalination plants provide 95 per cent of drinking water in Bahrain, 90 per cent in Kuwait, 86 per cent in Oman, 79 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 42 per cent in the Emirates.
By contrast, Iran relies on water from rivers, reservoirs and depleted underground aquifers. It supplements these basic supplies with water from a few desalination plants which provide a fraction of its needs.
Iran has faced years of water shortages and its position is especially perilous: last autumn, for example, Tehran faced critical water shortages after only 1mm of rain fell during the autumn period.
The crisis prompted Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian last year to call for the eventual relocation of the capital, Tehran, to the small coastal town of Makran on the Gulf of Oman.
Although the Iranian government has blamed water shortages on climate change, drought and western sanctions, analysts say the causes also include building too many dams, depleting aquifers and failing to consult environmental experts.
Some 400 plants in the Gulf states, fuelled by local oil and gas, produce about 40 per cent of the world’s desalinated water. Water scarcity has made desalination essential for the region.
Water wars have long been a risk and a reality in this arid region. Rivers and underground water resources shared by two or more states have created tension and precipitated conflict.
Even before its 1967 conquest of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel was accused of siphoning off their water supplies, while Israel and Jordan negotiated an agreement on sharing the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers.
