As the war in the Middle East unfolds, Northeastern University experts in politics, sustainability and international law are increasingly concerned that recent military attacks on desalination plants that provide the bulk of the region’s freshwater could become regular occurrences. Iranian officials have accused the U.S. of striking a water desalination plant they say supplies 30 villages, while Bahrain said Iranian drones damaged a desalination plant there, though supplies remained online. Even more so than oil, countries in the Middle East, including Israel, run on water pulled from the sea or brackish groundwater and converted into freshwater, said Auroop Ganguly, Northeastern distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Without the hundreds of desalination plants that dot the desert region, millions of people would be left without water for drinking, cooking and agriculture. Bahrain, for instance, relies on seawater desalination for almost 95% of its potable water, while Iran relies on desalination mainly in the southern and coastal regions “although that may change as … both surface water and groundwater [become] scarce,” Ganguly said.
