Water consumption and economic growth: evidence for the environmental Kuznets curve

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the relationship between economic growth and consumption of fresh water in Iran using the environmental Kuznets hypothesis. In this study we used per-capita water consumption and per-capita gross domestic production of 31 provinces of Iran from 2005 to 2018. The results showed the inverted ‘U’-shaped relationship between water consumption and economic growth and that the environmental Kuznets hypothesis existed between water withdrawal and economic growth in the agricultural and service sectors, and that the water–production relationship in the industrial sector followed an inverted ‘N’-shape. The results can help policymakers with policy implementations related to sectorial water consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• Economic growth
• water consumption
• environmental Kuznets curve

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the reviewers and editors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Sayed H. Saghaian acknowledges the support from the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project No. KY004052, under accession number 1012994.