GOMA Workshop Page

GOMA is a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, with the goal of significantly increasing regional collaboration to enhance the environmental and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico. In March of 2006, the Alliance released the Governor’s Action Plan, identifying six priority issues:

GOMA Resiliency PIT Mission: Coordinate and enhance efforts of local, state, federal, business and non-profit partners to assist coastal communities and ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico region in becoming more resilient in structure and function.

Definition of Resilience: Resilience is the capacity of human and natural/physical systems to adapt to and recover from change. Focus areas within the definition include culture and heritage, ecological systems, economics, insurance, and smart growth.

To integrate the newly formed Resiliency PIT into the 2009 revision of the Governors Action Plan, the Resiliency PIT is proposing Seven (7) Action Items to work toward over the next three years. The proposed action items are:

1	Resiliency Index: A Resiliency Index is a cost effective method of determining if a community will reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure after a disaster. The Action proposes the development of a resiliency index that can be used as a vehicle to introduce and promote the concept of resiliency to local governments and communities.
2	Gulf of Mexico Resiliency Clearinghouse: The Action proposes to compile resiliency-related information sources, projects, tools, and policies from across the Gulf of Mexico region. Identify local, state, federal, private, non-profit, and academic efforts, and develop a mechanism for sharing this information (e.g. an atlas or directory and capabilities of partners, policies, and tools in each of the five Gulf States.)
3	Resiliency Workshops and Networking Across Resilience-related Professions: The Action intends to improve coordination and communication between coastal emergency managers, floodplain managers, natural resource managers, coastal planners, and county officials to foster and integrate pro-active resiliency and mitigation measures. One method is to hold an ongoing series of workshops across the Gulf region, providing counties and parishes with helpful tools to make their communities more resilient.
4	Improved Spatial Reference Framework: Enhance the vertical accuracy, geographic distribution, and real-time availability of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), by building out the National CORS Network and supporting repeat observations of gravity and the passive survey control network throughout the Gulf coast. Establish connections between the NSRS and all local tidal datums, and support the development of a coast-wide vertical datum transformation tool to enable integration of topographic and bathymetric surveys and enhancement of hydrodynamic models.
5	Incentives Research: The Action intends to research economic and other drivers/incentives that encourage and/or enable sustainable and hazard resilient development. It could consider how changes in incentives would impact land use (e.g. type of development.) It could evaluate existing development practices and incentives in high-risk areas and make recommendations. It will need some mechanism to identify the gaps.
6	Culture/heritage Documentation: The Action would develop some projects to document the culture and heritage of traditional coastal communities in the Gulf region. It would document traditional uses of coastal resources to demonstrate the connections between healthy ecosystems and healthy communities (sense of place.) This documentation would provide useful information in the recovery and rebuilding process.
7	Coastal Community Engagement: The Action would enable coastal communities to choose locally appropriate paths to resilience and sustainability through a variety of outreach and engagement tools (e.g. workshops, factsheets, websites, videos, charrettes, etc.) Work with the Education Team to get the resiliency message out via a variety of partners (e.g. PBS stations, Earth Gauge, etc.)

Resiliency Index: A Resiliency Index is a cost effective method of determining if a community will reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure after a disaster. The Action proposes the development of a resiliency index that can be used as a vehicle to introduce and promote the concept of resiliency to local governments and communities.

Gulf of Mexico Resiliency Clearinghouse: The Action proposes to compile resiliency-related information sources, projects, tools, and policies from across the Gulf of Mexico region. Identify local, state, federal, private, non-profit, and academic efforts, and develop a mechanism for sharing this information (e.g. an atlas or directory and capabilities of partners, policies, and tools in each of the five Gulf States.)

Resiliency Workshops and Networking Across Resilience-related Professions: The Action intends to improve coordination and communication between coastal emergency managers, floodplain managers, natural resource managers, coastal planners, and county officials to foster and integrate pro-active resiliency and mitigation measures. One method is to hold an ongoing series of workshops across the Gulf region, providing counties and parishes with helpful tools to make their communities more resilient.

Improved Spatial Reference Framework: Enhance the vertical accuracy, geographic distribution, and real-time availability of the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), by building out the National CORS Network and supporting repeat observations of gravity and the passive survey control network throughout the Gulf coast. Establish connections between the NSRS and all local tidal datums, and support the development of a coast-wide vertical datum transformation tool to enable integration of topographic and bathymetric surveys and enhancement of hydrodynamic models.

Incentives Research: The Action intends to research economic and other drivers/incentives that encourage and/or enable sustainable and hazard resilient development. It could consider how changes in incentives would impact land use (e.g. type of development.) It could evaluate existing development practices and incentives in high-risk areas and make recommendations. It will need some mechanism to identify the gaps.

Culture/heritage Documentation: The Action would develop some projects to document the culture and heritage of traditional coastal communities in the Gulf region. It would document traditional uses of coastal resources to demonstrate the connections between healthy ecosystems and healthy communities (sense of place.) This documentation would provide useful information in the recovery and rebuilding process.

Coastal Community Engagement: The Action would enable coastal communities to choose locally appropriate paths to resilience and sustainability through a variety of outreach and engagement tools (e.g. workshops, factsheets, websites, videos, charrettes, etc.) Work with the Education Team to get the resiliency message out via a variety of partners (e.g. PBS stations, Earth Gauge, etc.)

Gulf of Mexico Alliance

Resilience Workgroup - Texas

Presentations