Oil might be what makes Persian Gulf states wealthy, but it is a network of 400 desalination plants that make the region habitable. That vital infrastructure, a massive investment that converts seawater into drinkable water, is now vulnerable to retaliatory strikes by Iran as it faces an ongoing bombardment by U.S. and Israeli forces.
University of Utah history professor Michael Christopher Low has closely researched desalination and its role in the social, economic and political life of the Middle East, calling the countries that rely on it “saltwater kingdoms.”
“Roughly 100 million people in the Gulf region rely on desalination plants for their water,” Low wrote in a March 5 article in The Conversation. “Without them, almost nobody would be able to live in Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE—or much of Saudi Arabia, including its capital, Riyadh.”
Yet these plants are easily targeted by advanced weaponry and low-tech sabotage. Since the start of the war on Feb. 28, national and international news media have sought out Low’s perspective. His forthcoming book, “Saltwater Kingdoms, Fossil-Fueled Water and Climate Change in Arabia,” is under contract with the University of California Press.
@theU sat down with Low, who directs the U’s Middle East Center, to discuss what’s at stake. The conversation is edited for length and clarity.
Water infrastructure is hardly the most exciting subject. What inspired you, as a historian, to study the Middle East’s desalination industry?
When I was researching my first book, “Imperial Mecca,” which was about the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, I was trying to tell the story of pilgrimage-related pandemics of cholera in the late 19th century. That backed me into water infrastructure, so I started to tell this story of Saudi Arabia’s pilgrimage experience and water infrastructure. As I worked through the end of that project, I collected a variety of Ottoman, British, American and Arabic-language materials on desalination. I decided that my next project would tell the story of the Gulf inside out. Don’t focus on the oil. It’s important, but I wanted to reframe these petrostates as what I call “Saltwater Kingdoms.”’ They produce the most man-made fossil-fueled water in the world.
How did desalination become so critical to the Gulf states?
Everybody starts with the basic equation: the Gulf equals oil. We think of these oil-wealthy Gulf monarchs as petro-states. Fair enough. Prior to oil wealth, these were sparsely populated Bedouin territories, by modern standards, destitute. No material wealth. The transformation is quite obvious. What I think people tend not to understand is the interconnection between oil wealth and this water infrastructure. The 20th century is also a story of the installation of massive desalination units all across the Gulf. This process started even before the discovery of oil. The steam and coal-powered British Empire, as it moved between the Mediterranean and India, for example, they realize, “We don’t have enough water resources to support industrialization, new labor flows, the kinds of business that we want to do.”
By the time we get to the end of World War II, oil is being discovered in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and eventually all over the Persian Gulf region. These regimes were asking their Western partners for this infrastructure. This is the way that we understand the growth of these societies. There’s no way you’re going to get from a population in Abu Dhabi in 1950, between 5,000 and 15,000, to millions today. It’s ecologically impossible. Oil money won’t get you there. You have to have that water infrastructure to make this happen.
Describe how important desalination plants are to the people in the Gulf.
Most of the Gulf States and major cities are more than 90% reliant on seawater desalination for municipal drinking water. Saudi Arabia is a little different story. The Kingdom has a bigger territory and relies more on groundwater use. So, that number might be something like 70% for a country like Saudi Arabia. These ballpark figures for drinking water don’t include the Gulf’s wider industrial and agricultural water usage profiles.
For the largest plants in the world, like Ras al-Khair in Saudi Arabia, we might be looking at a million cubic meters of production per day. That would be roughly 264 million gallons. This category of mega plants includes sites like Ras al-Khair, Shuaiba on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, Taweelah in Abu Dhabi, and Jebel Ali in Dubai. If we look at the list of the top 10 in the world, eight or nine of those are in the Gulf.
To what extent has the Iranian regime targeted desalination plants since the start of the war?
On March 7, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, put out this bombshell tweet that says, “The United States and Israel have attacked Qeshm Island. They have attacked a desalination plant that serves some 30 villages.” This claim comes out, but has not been verified. Then, Araghchi says, “The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran.” Almost immediately afterwards, Iran struck a plant in Bahrain. In the last few days, the rhetoric has only escalated further.
Are desalination plants the region’s Achilles heel?
If Iran were to pursue a coordinated strategy of hitting dozens of these mega plants in the Gulf, that would be much worse than hitting the oil facilities. In a dangerous escalation of the situation over the weekend, President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Iran on March 21, threatening to “obliterate” Iranian power plants if Iran refused to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In response, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf took to X (Twitter) to warn that if Iran’s power plants and infrastructures were targeted, Iran would pursue a concerted strategy to “irreversibly destroy” the Gulf’s critical energy and desalination facilities.
Trump then backed down from his previous ultimatum, suggesting that renewed talks with Iran could lead to a de-escalation, but Iranian officials expressed skepticism.
As I told Arab News, “Attacking a desalination is, and should be, taboo. To me, it (is) analogous to using a nuclear weapon. These are things we shouldn’t be considering because they’re far too dangerous and disastrous.”
The vulnerability is huge. If you were to ask what’s worse, I would say attacking civilian water infrastructure. That’s a clear international crime and human rights violation. The water piece of this is so interconnected. Oftentimes, port facilities, refineries and water facilities are within a few miles or actually side by side with one another. So, generally, those facilities are vulnerable because of their proximity to one another.
Are they not fortified?
There’s really no way that you could. These sorts of infrastructures are on a massive scale. All these Gulf regimes have a clear sense that they need to position themselves to intercept and protect these, but it’s a really hard task.
All these cities have missile interception systems and support from the United States. But none of this is foolproof. There are two worries. There’s incidental contact damaging the plants, but the worst-case scenario is the pursuit of a concerted strategy by an Iranian regime in its death throes.
The following is a list of Middle East Center Director Chris Low’s recent media appearances featuring his comments about Gulf desalination plants and their relevance to the ongoing Iran war.
- The Conversation: “Persian Gulf desalination could become military targets in regional war,” March 5, 2026
- Mother Jones: “Middle East Desalination Plant Attacks Highlight Risks of Relying on ‘Fossil Fuel Water’,” March 16, 2026
- Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy): “La «guerra contro l’acqua» l’altra grande paura dei Paesi del Golfo,” March 11, 2026
- Inside Climate News: “Attacks on Middle East Desalination Plants Highlights the Risks of Near-Total Dependence on ‘Fossil Fuel Water’,” March 11, 2026
- Euronews: “‘Serious water crisis’ on horizon as Middle East’s desalination plants hit and acid rain falls,” March 10, 2026
- Arab News: “Are water desalination plants the Gulf’s Achilles’ in the latest Middle East conflict?,” March 10, 2026
- L’Express (France): “Guerre en Iran: S’en prendre à une usine de dessalement équivaut à sortir l’arme nucléaire,” March 10, 2026
- Newsweek: “Drinking Water Warning Issued for Millions as Iran War Threatens Water Supply,” March 9, 2026
- Associated Press: “Oil built the Persian Gulf. Desalinated water keeps it alive. War could threaten both,” March 8, 2026
- Global News (Canada): “US-Iran War: Growing concern for Gulf nation’s water supply,” March 8, 2026
- The Atlantic: “The Gulf Countries Can’t Take Much More,” March 6, 2026
- ABC 4 Utah: “U.S.-Iran Conflict: What Comes next? Utah experts weigh in,” March 2, 2026
- Project Syndicate: “Iran’s Water Weapon Against the Gulf,” March 28, 2026.
- France 24: “‘Strategy of ecological terror. Desalination as a weapon of war’ in the Middle East,”1 April 2026.
- Associated Press: “Trump threatens to destroy Iran’s desalination plants. Here’s what that could mean for the Mideast,” 30 March 2026.
Banner image: The United Arab Emirates’ Jebel Ali Power and Desalination Complex, on the coast of the Persian Gulf in Dubai, is among the world’s largest water desalination plants. As the Iran war widens, fears grow that plants like this could become targets for Iranian attacks. Photo credit: Adobe Stock.
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Brian Maffly
Science writer, University of Utah Communications
801-573-2382 brian.maffly@utah.edu