Homelessness in the UK: who is most at risk?

Is the common pressure group and media refrain that ‘we are all two pay cheques away from homelessness’ justified by the evidence? Drawing on multivariate analysis of two cross-sectional datasets (the ‘Scottish Household Survey’ and the UK-wide ‘Poverty and Social Exclusion’) Survey and one longitudinal data-set (the ‘British Cohort Study 1970’), this paper provides a systematic account of the social distribution of homelessness in the UK. Informed by a critical realist explanatory framework, our analysis underlines the centrality of poverty, especially childhood poverty, to the generation of homelessness, while also demonstrating the impact of broader labour and housing market contexts, and certain demographic, personal and social support characteristics. These findings reinforce the moral imperative for policy action on homelessness, while at the same time signalling opportunities to target preventative interventions on high risk groups.     

Explosive construction in a micro‐state: environmental limit and the Bon curve: evidence from North Cyprus

The dynamo role of the construction sector in North Cyprus is documented on the basis of an empirical estimation of backward and forward linkages during the period 1998 to 2005. This was a period when the North Cyprus economy experienced an economic boom in the aftermath of the UN Peace Plan known as the Annan Plan for settling the Cyprus problem. The latest input–output table for the North Cyprus economy is 1998 and we had to derive backward and forward linkages for 2005 from a detailed breakdown of inter‐industry transactions per unit of construction output using the most significant purchases and deliveries, normalizing these transactions for comparability between 2005 and 1998. The results reflect radically different pattern of inter‐industry transactions in 2005 compared to 1998. This work also has general interest in highlighting the possibility of a modified Bon curve for micro‐states, such as North Cyprus, in which environmental constraints may be encountered earlier implying an inverted V‐shaped Bon curve in place of an inverted U‐shape.     

The origin of lead in the organic horizon of tundra soils: atmospheric deposition, plant translocation from the mineral soil or soil mineral mixing?

Knowledge of the anthropogenic contribution to lead (Pb) concentrations in surface soils in high latitude ecosystems is central to our understanding of the extent of atmospheric Pb contamination. In this study, we reconstructed fallout of Pb at a remote sub-arctic region by using two ombrotrophic peat cores and assessed the extent to which this airborne Pb is able to explain the isotopic composition (²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb ratio) in the O-horizon of tundra soils. In the peat cores, long-range atmospheric fallout appeared to be the main source of Pb as indicated by temporal trends that followed the known European pollution history, i.e. accelerated fallout at the onset of industrialization and peak fallout around the 1960s-70s. The Pb isotopic composition of the O-horizon of podzolic tundra soil (²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb = 1.170 ± 0.002; mean ± SD) overlapped with that of the peat (²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb = 1.16 ± 0.01) representing a proxy for atmospheric aerosols, but was clearly different from that of the parent soil material (²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb = 1.22-1.30). This finding indicated that long-range fallout of atmospheric Pb is the main driver of Pb accumulation in podzolic tundra soil. In O-horizons of tundra soil weakly affected by cryoturbation (cryosols) however, the input of Pb from the underlying mineral soil increased as indicated by ²⁰⁶Pb/²⁰⁷Pb ratios of up to 1.20, a value closer to that of local soil minerals. Nevertheless, atmospheric Pb appeared to be the dominant source in this soil compartment. We conclude that Pb concentrations in the O-horizon of studied tundra soils - despite being much lower than in boreal soils and representative for one of the least exposed sites to atmospheric Pb contaminants in Europe - are mainly controlled by atmospheric inputs from distant anthropogenic sources.