RESEARCH ARTICLE Analysis of asymmetries in air pollution with water resources, and energy consumption in Iran Mohammad Javad Ashouri 1 & Meysam Rafei 2 Received: 27 December 2017 /Accepted: 19 March 2018 /Published online: 17 April 2018 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Iran should pay special attention to its excessive consumption of energy and air pollution due to the limited availability of water resources. This study explores the effects of the consumption of energy and water resources on air pollution in Iran from 1971 to 2014. It utilizes the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag approach to establish a robust relationship between the variables which show that both long- and short-run coefficients are asymmetrical. The positive and negative aspects of the long-run coefficients of energy consumption and water resources were found to be 0.19, - 1.63, 0.18, and 2.36, respectively, while only the negative ones were significant for energy consumption. Based on the cumulative effects, it can be established that there are important and significant differences in the responses of air pollution to positive and negative changes in water productivity and energy consumption. In particular, CO 2 gas emissions are affected by negative changes in H 2 O productivity both in terms of the total and the GDP per unit of energy use in Iran. In regard to short-run results, considerable asymmetric effects occur on all the variables for CO 2 emissions. Based on the results obtained, some recommendations are presented, which policymakers can adopt in efforts to address the issues of pollution and consumption. Keywords Air pollution . Energy consumption . Water resources . NARDL model Abbreviations NARDL Non-linear autoregressive distributed lag AECM Asymmetric error correction model Introduction The world is facing major environmental issues, lack of suf- ficient energy sources, and a water crisis. The most striking problem caused by human activity in most developing coun- tries is pollution and complications arising from it. Unfortunately, global economic development and growth have had major negative impacts on the environment as most economic activities generate pollution. The point is that envi- ronment and economic growth is allied (Sharzehei and Haghanie 2010). Figure 1 shows consumption of energy per capita in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, and as seen Iran’ s consump- tion of energy per capita exceeds that of Turkey and Iraq. While energy consumption is necessary for development, it has led to the rapid increase in carbon dioxide emissions with global energy utilization increasing by 45% (EIA n.d.). 1 According to UN (2016), CO 2 emissions from the burning and consumption of fossil fuel energy increased from four billion tonnes in 1970 to ten billion tonnes in 2016 with China at 30%, the USA (15%), Europe (9%), India (7%), and Russia (5%) being the major producers. WorldBank (2017) recently announced that were highest among high- income countries. Figure 2 shows CO 2 emissions and levels of income. Such pollution is the main cause of the rise in average global temperatures and contribute to global warming and climate change effects (Omay et al. 2014). If not addressed, this will lead to a degradation of the global environment and contribute to natural disasters such as fre- quent typhoons, the drying of lakes, droughts, rising sea levels, and other calamities (Bozkurt and Akan 2014). The interna- tional community has been struggling to reduce such pollution, 1 US Energy Information Administration Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Meysam Rafei m.rafei@khu.ac.ir 1 Department of Industrial Engineering, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran 2 Department of Economics, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2018) 25:17590–17601 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-1825-5