Chapter 1: The “water problem” -- Chapter 2: Tensions from the start: Tales of the first hydrologist and his civilization -- Chapter 3: Divide and ponder: Dismembering water to study water -- Chapter 4: Adopting a more fluid ‘frame of mind’ in Hydrology -- Chapter 5: Limits in language: Which ‘water’ do you mean? -- Chapter 6: Hydrology by the numbers and for the numbers -- Chapter 7: Are hydrologists wading through ideas, instead of water? -- Chapter 8: An “umbrella perspective” of water: The Hermeneutics of hydrology -- Chapter 9: When water bows to market demands, so may its science -- Chapter 10: Neocolonial Hydrology: How ‘authentic’ are today’s human-water interactions? -- Chapter 11: How a ‘hypermasculine’ hydrology suffers from ED (Explanatory Dysfunction) -- Chapter 12: A psychoanalysis of wet dreams -- Chapter 13: Plato’s wonder and hydrology -- Chapter 14: Epilogue: On responsibility and blame (and a toast to hydrology).

This book examines the intricate web linking water science and society, using diverse philosophical lenses. Highlighting the tensions within the threads of this web, we spotlight major conceptual tightropes that water researchers tread daily. To effectively navigate these delicate threads, a 'healthy' tension in the encompassing web is necessary. Drawing inspiration from Freud's examination of tensions in "Society and Its Discontents," we illuminate the tension-filled paradoxes inherent to water science, emphasizing the challenges in keeping these paradoxical threads taut enough to ensure a navigable and sustainable bond with society. Central to our narrative is the escalating societal urge to quantify and "manage" water—something interwoven throughout every environmental layer, including the fabric of our being. An excessive focus on management may alienate users from their water realities, jeopardizing the vital threads that sustainability tether water science and society.Consequently, this book explores compelling and inescapable tensions that resist tidy universal resolution, such as: the language of water science, including its mathematical reductions (i.e., models); the effect of water's commodification on its science; hydrology’s intersection with colonialism; and other concerns that reveal distortions in our hydrology. We aim to aid water professionals in recognizing and fine-tuning the paradoxes intrinsic to their work. To underscore the interwoven complexity of contemporary hydrology, ‘Hydrology and Its Discontents’ guides readers into the tempestuous depths of water research, all the while urging a recalibration of perspectives and motivations.