L’importanza scientifica, culturale e divulgativo-didattica delle aree carsiche nelle evaporiti dell’Emilia-Romagna : la candidatura a World Heritage UNESCO

The karst areas in the evaporites of the Emilia-Romagna Region (Northern Italy), despite covering only 0.6% of the regional territory, have a high impact on the local landscape and hold a prominent role in the scientific, cultural and dissemination fields. After a first phase of elaboration of the candidacy, to which professors of the Universities of Bologna and Modena and Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna Region Speleological Federation and staff of protected areas, regional services and regional bureau of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape contributed, the Emilia-Romagna Region Authority, leader of the project, applied to have the evaporites of the region listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site. As expressly requested by UNESCO, all the areas covered by the proposal, officially named Evaporitic Karst and Caves of Northern Apennines (EKCNA), are currently protected by national or regional parks or regional reserves and sites of Nature 2000 network, which guarantee not only their protection, but also their sustainable tourist use, already quantifiable today in tens of thousands of annual presences. The Emilia-Romagna evaporites are the most studied in the world, investigated since the late 16th century. The proposal is based on an in-depth comparative analysis with 13 other world karst areas with similar characteristics, an analysis which has unequivocally demonstrated the universal prominence of the evaporites of the Emilia-Romagna Region.