In the fall of 2021 and early 2023, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) will organize and host three interactive workshops to identify priorities or investments that could build resilient infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico region. These workshops will employ a serious game that explores two or more potential scenarios that involve infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico region. These workshops will be held in three separate locations (e.g., Washington, DC; New Orleans, LA: Houston, TX) and host different stakeholder groups to gain diverse perspectives. These scenarios will feature natural-disaster stressors to current infrastructure that could result in major failures, as well as identify potential approaches that could prevent or mitigate the effects of those failures. Participants’ subject-matter expertise and their experiences will be engaged to develop (and then later revise) a prioritized list of actions to enhance infrastructure resilience in the Gulf of Mexico. This demonstration project will address relevant policy questions:

1. How to maximize return on federal investments in infrastructure to get the most resilient outcomes?
2. How to mitigate private infrastructure assets from becoming public liabilities?