{"id":515544,"date":"2026-03-10T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/515544\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T19:04:09","slug":"serious-water-crisis-on-horizon-as-middle-easts-desalination-plants-hit-and-acid-rain-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/515544\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Serious water crisis\u2019 on horizon as Middle East\u2019s desalination plants hit and acid rain falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

By&nbspAngela Symons<\/a>&nbsp&&nbspAnnika Hammerschlag, Seth Borenstein and Jennifer McDermott&nbspwith&nbspAP<\/p>\n

\n Published on 10\/03\/2026 – 13:10 GMT+1\u2022Updated
\n 16:35\n <\/p>\n

\u2018Black rain\u2019 fell on Iran over the weekend after US-Israeli strikes hit oil depots.<\/p>\n

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Alongside acid rain precursors \u2013 sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide \u2013 the plumes of pollutants are likely to contain a cocktail of hydrocarbons, PM2.5 and carcinogenic compounds, according to Gabriel da Silva, associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Melbourne. Heavy metals and inorganic compounds from infrastructure caught in the explosions may also be in the mix.<\/p>\n

On the ground, people have reported difficulty breathing and burning in their eyes and throats. But the longer term health risks<\/a> span cancer, birth complications, neurological and heart conditions. As the pollutants settle on buildings and seep into waterways, they could persist long after the fires are extinguished, threatening marine life in an already stressed ecosystem. <\/p>\n

Desalination plants make Middle East nations vulnerable<\/p>\n

Pollution is just one of many threats to Iran and neighbouring nations\u2019 water supplies. Strikes have hit desalination plants<\/a> in the Middle East, which produce freshwater from salty seawater and sustain many of the region\u2019s major cities, making them a major vulnerability in times of war.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone thinks of Saudi Arabia and their neighbours as petrostates<\/a>. But I call them saltwater kingdoms,\u201d says Michael Christopher Low, director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah.\u201dThey\u2019re human-made fossil-fuelled water superpowers. It\u2019s both a monumental achievement of the 20th century and a certain kind of vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran says the US set a \u201cprecedent\u201d after an airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plant, cutting into the water supply for 30 villages.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Iran was accused of damaging a desalination plant in Bahrain<\/a>. Since many Gulf desalination plants are physically integrated with power stations as co\u2011generation facilities, attacks on electrical infrastructure could also hinder water production.<\/p>\n

\u2018Serious water crisis\u2019 could be on the horizon<\/p>\n

Although Iran is less reliant on desalination than neighbouring states, as it gets most of its water from rivers, reservoirs and underground aquifers, these are depleted after five years of drought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The country is racing to expand desalination along its southern coast and pump some of the water inland, but infrastructure constraints, energy costs and international sanctions have sharply limited scalability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were already thinking of evacuating the capital last summer,\u201d says Ed Cullinane, Middle East editor at Global Water Intelligence. \u201cI don\u2019t dare to wonder what it\u2019s going to be like this summer under sustained fire, with an ongoing economic catastrophe and a serious water crisis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oil supply disruption and renewable energy<\/p>\n

While bombed refineries and disrupted shipping channels are crippling oil-dependent economies, history suggests the immediate instinct will be to reach for dirtier fuel. <\/p>\n

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some European nations turned to coal while others paid a premium for US liquefied natural gas shipped across the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

With Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil transits, tankers have been forced to reroute around Africa, spiking shipping emissions and the risk of oil spills along congested alternative routes.<\/p>\n

The closure also threatens food supplies. Roughly a third of the world’s fertiliser trade passes through the Strait, and with oil prices surging<\/a>, the cost of farming and food transport is rising too.<\/p>\n

But the crisis is also sharpening the case for food and energy independence closer to home. <\/p>\n

\u201cHomegrown renewable energy has never been cheaper, more accessible, or more scalable,\u201d says UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres. \u201cThe resources of the clean energy era cannot be blockaded or weaponised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The climate fallout of war<\/p>\n

Whatever happens with nations’ energy choices, the war itself will spike emissions.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine<\/a>, now in its fourth year, has so far emitted a staggering 311 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.<\/p>\n

And reports show that, even before the Iran invasion, the world’s militaries are responsible for 5.5 per cent<\/a> of Earth’s heat-trapping emissions each year, more than any country except China, the United States and India.<\/p>\n

Neta Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War<\/a> project at Brown University\u2019s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, says fighter jets consuming vast quantities of fuel, releasing carbon dioxide and other pollutants, is just one example.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consequences of war on emissions will far exceed any incremental offset in emissions due to increased enthusiasm for a green transition,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By&nbspAngela Symons&nbsp&&nbspAnnika Hammerschlag, Seth Borenstein and Jennifer McDermott&nbspwith&nbspAP Published on 10\/03\/2026 – 13:10 GMT+1\u2022Updated 16:35 \u2018Black rain\u2019 fell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[57434,192,233264,31937,228242,20200,79,52179],"class_list":["post-515544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-armed-conflicts","tag-environment","tag-environment-pollution","tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","tag-iran-war","tag-pollution","tag-science","tag-water-crisis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}