From Desalination to National Security: Is Israel Prepared for Threats to Its Water Supply?
More than three decades ago, the late Professor Arnon Soffer identified seawater desalination as one of the key solutions to water scarcity in Israel and the Middle East. Since then, desalination has become a remarkable technological and national achievement. Yet recent events highlight a new geostrategic challenge: How can Israel ensure a continuous water supply when the infrastructure on which it depends is itself vulnerable to disruptions and threats?
For decades, Israel has faced significant water challenges stemming from a combination of semi-arid climatic conditions, sustained population growth, increasing demand for water, and limited natural freshwater resources.
More than thirty years ago, the late Professor Arnon Soffer, who would later establish the Chaikin Institute for Geostrategy at the University of Haifa, identified seawater desalination as one of the key solutions to water scarcity in Israel and the wider region.
Over time, desalination evolved from a prospective solution into a central component of Israel's water sector. The construction of large-scale desalination plants along the Mediterranean coast enabled Israel to significantly increase its supply of freshwater and reduce its dependence on natural water sources affected by rainfall variability and climatic fluctuations.
Israel's desalination revolution is widely regarded as one of the country's most significant achievements in natural resource management. However, as desalination plants have assumed an increasingly important role in the national water supply, they have also become critical national infrastructure.
When an Environmental Event Becomes a National Challenge
Recent events illustrate the complexities associated with dependence on desalination infrastructure.
Unusually high turbidity in seawater led to the shutdown of five of Israel's six major desalination plants. The incident demonstrated how changes in marine environmental conditions can disrupt a substantial portion of a country's drinking water production capacity within a short period.
High seawater turbidity can complicate the treatment and filtration processes required before desalination. Under certain conditions, it may necessitate reducing operations or temporarily shutting down facilities to protect their systems.
The implications, however, extend far beyond engineering considerations.
When a significant share of a country's water supply depends on a relatively small number of facilities located along the same coastline, an environmental disruption can quickly become a matter of operational continuity, infrastructure security, and national resilience.
The recent incident underscores the need to assess not only Israel's water production capacity under normal conditions, but also its ability to maintain a stable supply when several facilities are disrupted or shut down simultaneously.
Implications for Agriculture and Food Security
Disruptions to water supplies can have far-reaching consequences for the Israeli economy, particularly for agriculture. According to figures reported following the incident, water supplies to agriculture were reduced by approximately 300,000 cubic meters per day during the week.
Such a reduction illustrates the close relationship between water infrastructure and Israel's ability to maintain consistent agricultural production. Agriculture depends on a reliable water supply, particularly in regions where rainfall is insufficient to meet crop requirements. Prolonged disruptions may affect production volumes, cultivation costs, and the availability of agricultural produce.
The issue therefore extends to food security, economic stability, and the country's ability to cope with emergencies.
It is important to distinguish between the immediate reduction in agricultural water supplies and potential long-term consequences, which depend on the duration and scale of the disruption, as well as the availability of alternative water sources. Nevertheless, the need to reduce supply highlights the interdependence of essential systems across the economy.
Expanding Desalination Capacity Is Not Enough
Israel continues to expand its desalination capacity. Government plans include increasing production capabilities over the coming decades, alongside the construction of new facilities and the expansion of existing ones.
Expanding production capacity is essential to meeting the challenges of population growth, future water demand, and the effects of climate change.
However, the recent incident raises a fundamental question: Is increasing the number of desalination plants and their production capacity sufficient to guarantee Israel's water security?
A resilient water system cannot be measured solely by the amount of water it can produce under optimal conditions. It must also be capable of coping with scenarios in which part of its production capacity is compromised, whether by natural events, technological failures, infrastructure damage, or security-related incidents.
From a geostrategic perspective, several complementary considerations must be addressed:
Diversification of water sources: Reducing dependence on a single source of supply or one type of infrastructure.
Infrastructure decentralization: Assessing the risks associated with concentrating essential production facilities in areas exposed to common threats.
Redundancy and backup capacity: Maintaining the ability to supply water even when parts of the system are not operational.
Preparedness for extreme scenarios: Developing plans to address unusual climatic events, large-scale technical failures, and security threats.
Operational continuity: Ensuring coordination among water authorities, emergency services, local governments, and sectors dependent on a reliable water supply.
The challenge is not necessarily to reduce reliance on desalination, but to ensure that its success does not become a source of vulnerability for the national system.
Water as a Geostrategic Asset
The discussion of water security extends beyond engineering and environmental management.
In the Middle East, where water availability is shaped by geographic, climatic, demographic, and political conditions, water is a resource of strategic importance.
The ability to ensure a reliable water supply affects public health, agriculture, economic activity, and social stability. During emergencies, it also becomes an essential component of a country's ability to maintain its core functions. Against a backdrop of climate change, extreme weather events, and regional instability, the importance of designing water systems that are not only efficient but also resilient to disruption continues to grow. Desalination has given Israel an extraordinary ability to address water scarcity. It now faces an additional challenge: ensuring that the system it has built can withstand unforeseen disruptions.
From Professor Soffer's Vision to the Challenges of Tomorrow
More than thirty years ago, Professor Arnon Soffer highlighted the need to rethink Israel's water resources and the role of desalination in addressing regional water scarcity.
Israel's experience today demonstrates the importance of that long-term perspective.
Yet as the challenges have evolved, strategic thinking must evolve with them: from addressing water scarcity to managing the risks associated with dependence on the infrastructure that produces the water itself.
The central question for the coming decades is not only how much water Israel will be able to desalinate, but how reliably it can ensure that supply even in times of crisis.
Water security is an integral part of national security. Long-term planning, diversification of water sources, stronger infrastructure, and emergency preparedness are essential to safeguarding Israel's national resilience.
Further reading: An article by the late Professor Arnon Soffer on seawater desalination and the challenge of water scarcity in Israel and the region.
