A preliminary overview of sinkholes in the Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy).

A short appraisal of Emilia-Romagna sinkhole morphologies has been performed by adding evorsion hollows, combustion hollows, pockmarks and earth-fissures to the new Italian sinkhole taxonomy put forward by CARAMANNA et alii (2008), while both the classical karstic environment and anthropogenic morphologies sensu stricto have been considered marginally. The most interesting and complex class is that of the alluvial plain micro-sinkholes (Suffusion phenomena). The origin of these morphologies is still misunderstood, and the variously related genetic hypotheses could refer to: i) direct suffusion; ii) water over-withdrawal; iii) active tectonics; iv) ways of natural sediments compaction due to deep basin-dewatering and/or degassing. Various kinds of difficulty negatively constrain research improvements, starting from the actual discovery of the phenomena. In fact, randomness in time and space still seems to be the only available possibility in the research of the outcropping areas, consisting of a perennial field recognition series and merely random information recording.