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Data visualizations in some form or another have served as decision-support tools for many centuries. In conjunction with advancements in information technology, data visualizations have become more accessible and more efficient to generate. In fact, virtually all enterprise resource planning and human resource (HR) information system vendors offer off-the-shelf data visualizations as part of decision-support dashboards as well as stand-alone images and displays for reporting. Plus, advances in programing languages and software such as Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, R, and Python have expanded the possibilities of fully customized graphics. Despite the proliferation of data visualization, relatively little is known about how to design data visualizations for displaying different types of HR data to different user groups, for different purposes, and with the overarching goal of improving the ways in which users comprehend and interpret data visualizations for decision-making purposes. To understand the state of science and practice as they relate to HR data visualizations and data visualizations in general, we review the literature on data visualizations across disciplines and offer an organizing framework that emphasizes the roles data visualization characteristics (e.g., display type, features), user characteristics (e.g., experience, individual differences), tasks, and objectives (e.g., compare values) play in user comprehension, interpretation, and decision-making. Finally, we close by proposing future directions for science and practice.

The contamination of groundwater by natural arsenic is currently a worldwide epidemic. Arsenic-contaminated groundwater has been reported in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, China, Hungary, West Bengal in India, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Of these regions, Bangladesh and West Bengal are the most seriously affected in terms of the size of the population at risk and magnitude of health problems. Hence, chronic exposure to arsenic >50′′μg/L in drinking water can result in serious health problems. Common symptoms of arsenic-related ailments are skin, cardiovascular, renal, hematological, and respiratory disorders. Therefore, this chapter focuses on nature, origin, and extent of groundwater arsenic contamination, probable causes, and its impacts on food, drinking water, and social coverage. It further discloses mitigation approaches proposed and practiced by the different research groups to combat this problem and finally concludes.

Arid ecosystem covers one third of the Earth's surface and is the home town of majority of the population of the world. This ecosystem is also important because it has significant roles in land and water resources management. However, due to anthropogenic land use activities or shifting climate conditions, the features of the ecosystem change and cause diminished vegetative cover, reduced productivity, increased soil erosion, invasion of exotics, and loss of native species. Moreover, in the recent years, earth's vegetative cover may exceed the ecosystem's capacity to adapt, which happens through the consequence of rapid land degradation along with desertification. Therefore, this chapter provides how different regions endeavor with this arid ecosystem by performing various adaptation practices.