The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene an ad-hoc committee to:

• Examine the cumulative effects of multiple restoration projects (e.g., regional-scale benefits or improvement in ecosystem function) within the context of long-term environmental trends. To keep the scope manageable, the panel may focus on restoration projects within a geographic region and provide justification for the geographic boundaries selected.
• Discuss acute events (e.g., hurricanes and storm surge, flooding associated with extreme precipitation events, large oil spills) and long-term environmental changes (e.g., relative sea level rise, changing land use/coastal development, chronic environmental disasters) that could have profound effects on the individual impact and cumulative effects of restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Consider the potential synergistic and antagonistic effects across multi-decadal restoration activities, and recommend adaptive management strategies that address the acute and long-term environmental changes that could affect restoration projects.
• Identify existing resources (e.g., environmental monitoring data and modeling efforts) that could be used to address the three bullets above. Are these data and efforts sufficient to inform decision making on environmental stewardship and protection? What additional observations may be needed?