There is a huge anticipation of negative impacts from industrial developments on the health of humans and the environment in the Waterberg municipality of South Africa. A detail understanding of such impacts demands the integration of relevant environmental monitoring and assessments of biophysical and socioeconomic systems before planned developments in the region. Over the years, an integrated approach to environmental monitoring has not been very successful, especially at the local and regional scale, because of vague conceptualization and lack of clear objectives and priorities linked to the interpretation of roles and responsibilities for compliance with existing environmental regulatory and management programs. This paper proposes a framework for integrating relevant environmental monitoring, as well as a potential theory of practice for the assessment of biophysical and socioeconomic systems in the context of planned developments. It highlights environmental monitoring and assessment as interdisciplinary concepts and describes how these could be linked. The paper also introduces the concept of environmental monitoring baseline, as a way around the present difficulties linked with the determination of realistic future environmental conditions, and thus, provides a means to improve the understanding of changes in key environmental parameters and their likely trends, drivers and impacts. This paper illustrates these concepts based on impacts from industrial activities on the health of humans and the environment in the Waterberg municipality of South Africa. It however argues that these concepts could provide a systematic procedure to robust environmental planning and management and a coherent understanding of environmental conditions before planned developments at a local scale.

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