Research in underwater acoustic networks has been developed rapidly to support large variety of applications such as mining equipment and environmental monitoring. As in terrestrial sensor networks; reliable data transport is demanded in underwater sensor networks. The energy efficiency of error correction technique should be considered because of the severe energy constraints of underwater wireless sensor networks. Forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ) are the two main error correction techniques in underwater networks. In this paper, a mathematical energy efficiency analysis for FEC and ARQ techniques in underwater environment has been done based on communication distance and packet size. The effects of wind speed, and shipping factor are studied. A comparison between FEC and ARQ in terms of energy efficiency is performed; it is found that energy efficiency of both techniques increases with increasing packet size in short distances, but decreases in longer distances. There is also a cut-off distance below which ARQ is more energy efficient than FEC, and after which FEC is more energy efficient than ARQ. This cut-off distance decreases by increasing wind speed. Wind speed has great effect on energy efficiency where as shipping factor has unnoticeable effect on energy efficiency for both techniques. © School of Engineering, Taylor's University.