Both energy production and consumption could simultaneously bring about local water scarcity and regional air emissions. Identifying energy-water-air pollution interactions caused by final demand of energy is essential for gaining potential synergies and avoiding unintended economic losses when designing sustainable energy development pathways. Given that, an energy-water-air pollution nexus (EWAN) model is developed to examine the energy-related water and air pollution embodied in household consumption at different income levels. Under multi-regional input-output framework, an optimized three-dimensional coupling (OTC) model for coordinated multi-resources development is proposed to obtain potential system benefits. It is found that to meet electricity demand, air pollution problems in northern provinces have aggravated, and water consumption in southern provinces has increased. Reduced electricity demand in rich regions has a greater impact on the gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, most economic changes occur in the demand changes of the electricity self-sufficient provinces. The impact of electricity demand by households at different income levels on air emissions and water usage is highly heterogeneous. For specific province, interfering with the consumption demand of Inner Mongolia is not conducive to both the economic and environmental system benefits. Although Heilongjiang is not short of water resources, its power generation mode needs to be adjusted. (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.