Why water supply may be the new front line in the war in the Middle East – National
Water treatment facilities in the Persian Gulf region are at risk amid the Iran war, with desalination plants in places like Bahrain suffering damage from strikes and threatening local water supplies.
Unlike attacks on military bases, personnel and equipment, attacks on power and especially civilian infrastructure are a new beginning in war, which at least one expert has crossed a red line.
“It is alarming that these types of infrastructure are being targeted,” said Mohammed Mahmoud, who leads Middle East climate and water policy at the United Nations University Institute of Water, Environment and Health..
“It’s a red line in a sea of red lines, unfortunately, that happens during war, attacking people’s infrastructure like water infrastructure, because it directly affects the lives of ordinary people, and for me, that’s about it.”
On March 8, Bahrain accused Iran of indiscriminately attacking civilians and damaging one of its desalination plants, although it did not say the facilities were offline.
The island nation, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been among the countries targeted by Iran’s drones and missiles.
Earlier, Iran claimed that US airstrikes damaged Iran’s desalination plant.
Abbas Araghchi, who is the foreign minister of Iran, said that the strike in the Iranian industry has reduced the water supply to 30 villages. He warned that by doing so “the US set the example, not Iran.”
Many desalination plants in the Gulf are physically connected to power stations as connection facilities, meaning that an attack on the power infrastructure could also disrupt water production.
Desalination involves removing the salt from seawater, which is recycled into clean drinking water and used in many Persian Gulf countries as a primary water source.
These desalination plants use a process known as reverse osmosis.
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Jay Warber, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry at the University of Toronto, describes this process as a “membrane-based technique” where water is forced through special polymer materials, and small pores filter out salt and other impurities.
“If you go inside one of these desalination plants, you’ll just see rows upon rows of what’s called pressure vessels, and these are big plastic tubes that are pressurized to tens of atmospheres of pressure, and inside those you have this membrane wrapped around, and it’s just rows upon rows because these things are giant water plants,” Warber said.
“They produce a lot of water, usually from sea water, but also other salty water that you can find, underground water and river water.”
To create the pressure needed to pump water through these facilities, Warber says a large amount of energy is needed. This means that even a power infrastructure strike can have an indirect impact on the desalination plant.
Why attack the desalination plant?
Mahmoud says that apart from being used for drinking, desalination of water in these facilities means that cities have water that can be used for agriculture, industry, sanitation and health care.
“The Gulf, in particular, has no other reliable source of water. They have no renewable clean water. What I mean is, they have no system of rivers and streams that other countries can use and rely on for their water needs,” said Mahmoud.
“The impact on those plants has huge, huge, huge, huge detrimental effects because of how much water that feeds on so many other things. There’s a huge, huge knock-on effect when those plants are offline.”
Attacks on water treatment plants mean that Iran is not only fighting militarily, but also targeting other nations’ infrastructure, putting local people at greater risk.
It is part of a larger pattern of Iranian responses targeting neighboring infrastructure and interests in the region.
Iran has attacked energy infrastructure targets in the Gulf region and blockaded the Strait of Hormuz by threatening any ships trying to pass through the strait.
Curtailing the export of goods and oil through the Strait of Hormuz has led to a rise in oil and gas prices around the world and negative effects on economies beyond the Middle East and even in Canada.
High oil prices and fleet volatility could mean problems for supply chains and accelerate inflation, meaning consumers will end up paying higher prices because of the war.
Those attacks on infrastructure such as desalination plants have often ranged from direct strikes that cause physical harm, but there are also potential risks to their digital systems.
Are Canada’s water systems safe?
Canada’s Cyber Security Center on March 9 warned of Iran’s risk of cyber attacks on infrastructure and other targets in Canada in response to Iran’s war, and as allies of the US and Israel they are being attacked regardless of whether they are directly involved or not.
“Canadian critical infrastructure personnel and other organizations that may be targeted should remain vigilant to threats posed by cyber actors aligned with Iran’s interests,” the Canadian Cyber Security Center said Monday in a paper.
It added: “Cyber actors sponsored by the Iranian government are targeting opportunities for poorly secured critical infrastructure (CI) networks and Internet-connected devices around the world, including those associated with the water and energy sectors.”
A separate report by the CyberSecurity Center that was sent in November 2025 also warned about Canadian water systems being at high risk of cyber attacks.
“We are assessing whether water systems are likely a target strategy for government-sponsored actors to generate power through disruptive or destructive cyber activity,” the Cyber Security Center said.
“We assess whether government-sponsored actors are likely to improve predetermined access to Canada’s water systems. However, we determine that these actors will disrupt those water systems only in times of crisis or inter-provincial conflict.”
When asked about his thoughts on this, Mahmoud says that water treatment facilities in the Persian Gulf “could be vulnerable” to cyber attacks.
“A lot of water infrastructure and operations, water delivery, water transfer, a lot of that is automated in terms of how those plants and technologies work. And so, cyber attacks can be one way to cause damage in the sense of taking plants offline,” he says, adding that in the end a direct physical impact can do serious and lasting damage to these facilities.
Mahmoud continued: “Something that scares me personally, with the work I do, is now that we are moving from military targets to civilian infrastructure.
– Via files from the Associated Press
