A system and method for directing and monitoring the whereabouts of persons within an environmentally hazardous area includes equipping each person with devices for monitoring personal physiological conditions (56), equipment conditions (64), topographical locations (34), environmental conditions (57) and other pertinent data. The data are individually encoded and uploaded to a processing center (36) where they are analyzed (58,60,61) in order to ensure compliance with health or environmental norms and safety regulations, generate hot-spot mapping (53) and to issue real-time risk avoidance behavior directives (62), worker, mechanism and material traffic directions, warnings (59), permissions or interdictions.