A commuting hierarchy of dispersive water wave equations makes a three-Hamiltonian system which belongs to a general class of nonstandard integrable systems whose theory is developed. The modified water wave hierarchy is a bi-Hamiltonian system; its modification bifurcates. The water wave hierarchy, and the hierarchies of the Korteweg-de Vries and the modified Korteweg-de Vries equations, as well as the classical Miura map, are given new representations through various specializations of nonstandard systems.