Overview
- Explores paradoxes inherent to water & water-related research to inspire contemplation & novel perspectives
- Examines why modern management of water & dependencies fail too often to achieve sustainability
- Argues that overemphasis on management-based water science can divorce water users from their water reality
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Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
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.Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Dr. John T. Van Stan II is an Associate Professor at Cleveland State University and directs the Wet Plant Laboratory.
Dr. Jack Simmons is Director of Liberal Studies and Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Georgia Southern University.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Hydrology and Its Discontents
Book Subtitle: Contemplations on the Innate Paradoxes of Water Research
Authors: John T. Van Stan II, Jack Simmons
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49768-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental Science, Earth and Environmental Science (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-49767-4Published: 23 February 2024
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-49770-4Due: 25 March 2024
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-49768-1Published: 22 February 2024
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 166
Number of Illustrations: 14 b/w illustrations
Topics: Water, general, Sociology, general, Philosophy of Nature