Water desalination plants damaged in Iran and Bahrain

IRANIAN and Bahraini water desalination plants have been damaged by attacks amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, officials from both countries said. 

On 7 March, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi reported strikes on a desalination plant on Qeshm Island in southern Iran, alleging the US had disrupted freshwater supply to 30 villages. The following day, Bahraini officials said an Iranian drone had damaged one of the kingdom’s desalination plants. The government said there was no impact on water supplies. 

US and Israeli forces have targeted critical infrastructure across Iran, including oil refineries, airports and data centres, in addition to their primary campaign against the country’s defence bases and nuclear sites. Iran has struck similar sites across the Gulf. 

Bahrain is particularly vulnerable, being one of the world’s most water-scarce countries with no permanent rivers and limited rainfall. According to the World Bank, average annual water capacity in the Middle East and North Africa is 480 cubic metres per capita versus 5,500 globally. 

Begum Tokay, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Nottingham who specialises in membrane separation, including for water desalination, said the extent of the long-term disruption to water supply depends on the plant design. Modern membrane-based plants using reverse osmosis are often modular and could resume operations in “days or weeks” if only section is damaged, whereas older thermal plants are harder to repair. Damage to specialised units such as high-pressure pumps could disrupt supply for longer.

Tokay also highlighted that desalination plants are often close to power stations, either to meet high electricity demand or to exploit waste heat. “That may then make some differences in the power plants’ operational procedures” if the desalination plant is suddenly offline, Tokay said. 

Kaveh Madani, an Iranian scientist and head of the Canada-based United Nations University Institute for Water, said attacks on desalination plants could constitute a war crime. “You’re talking about millions of people being affected,” he said. The Geneva Convention prohibits attacks on drinking water facilities intended to deny civilians sustenance.