However, a single strike is unlikely to shut down the Gulf’s water supply. The system is designed to absorb isolated disruption, but sustained or multisite attacks will begin to strain the supply more quickly.
“In the Gulf, desalination is designed with enough breathing space so that losing a plant is not immediately reflected on tap,” says Rabi Rustam, professor of water and environmental engineering at Heriot-Watt University Dubai.
In Kuwait, Iranian drone attacks have damaged two power and desalination facilities and set fires at two oil sites. Other sites, including Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, have been identified as potentially exposed.
“Attacking desalination plants would be a strategic move, but it would also come very close to the red line and in some cases even cross it,” says Andreas Craig, senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London.
Craig explains that water infrastructure falls into a different category. “Water infrastructure is not just another utility. In places that depend on desalination, it underpins civic survival, public health, hospital functions, sanitation, and basic state legitimacy.”
Craig says that international humanitarian law gives special protection to civilian objects and objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. “This is why attacks on water systems have such serious legal and ethical significance,” says Craig.
The incidents highlight a structural reality: desalination is central to the Gulf’s water supply, and disruption has immediate impacts on daily life.
How does the system absorb the disturbance
At first glance, desalination appears unsafe. Shut down a plant, and the supply decreases. In practice, systems are designed with layers of redundancy.
Plants operate at multiple locations, allowing production to be redistributed if one facility is slow. Water is also stored at various points throughout the network, including central reservoirs and building-level tanks, creating a buffer that prevents disruption.
“The region’s water supply is diverse due to the network of multiple facilities distributed along the coastline,” according to a statement to WIRED Middle East by Veolia, an environmental services provider whose technologies account for about 19 percent of desalination capacity in the region.
The company says distribution systems are interconnected, allowing plants to “support and substitute for each other when necessary”, helping to maintain continuity of service.
Veolia says that in the UAE, storage capacity typically lasts for about a week, while in other parts of the region it may be limited to two to three days.
In practice, this means that the system can absorb the disturbance for a limited period of time. Once reserves are depleted, water supply depends on whether plants can continue to produce enough water to meet demand.
system that produces water
Unlike most regions, the Gulf is not dependent on rivers or rainfall. It relies on a network of desalination plants along its coastline that convert seawater into potable water on a continuous basis.
Seawater is drawn into treatment facilities, filtered and processed through reverse osmosis – it is forced through membranes to remove salt and impurities – or through thermal methods that evaporate and condense the water. The resulting supply is distributed through pipelines, stored in reservoirs, and delivered to homes, hospitals, and industry.
This is not a flexible system. It is designed to operate continuously, producing large quantities of water that sustain cities, industrial activity and essential services. The Gulf states produce about 40 percent of the world’s desalinated water, operating more than 400 plants across the region.
Dependence varies by country but is high everywhere. In the United Arab Emirates, desalination accounts for 41 to 42 percent of the total water supply, while in Kuwait, it provides about 90 percent of drinking water, and in Saudi Arabia, about 70 percent.
When obstacles become visible
For residents, the disruption will not be felt immediately – water will continue to flow.
Rustam points out that the buildings are supported by internal storage and pumping systems, meaning that initial changes in supply may not be apparent. In many cases, water pressure remains constant even as the broader system is adjusted.
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