It has long been recognised that corrosion of steel is extremely costly and affects many industry sectors, including concrete construction. The cost of corrosion of steel reinforcement within concrete is estimated at many billions of dollars worldwide. The corrosion of steel reinforcement represents a deterioration of the steel which in turn detrimentally affects its performance and therefore that of the concrete element within which it has been cast. A great amount of work has been undertaken over the years concerning the prevention of corrosion of steel, including the application of coatings, which has included the study of the process of corrosion itself, the properties of reinforcing steels and their resistance to corrosion as well as the design of structures and the construction process. The objective of fib Bulletin 49 is to provide readers with an appreciation of the principles of corrosion of reinforcing steel embedded in concrete and to describe the behaviour of particular steels and their coatings as used to combat the effects of such corrosion. These include galvanised reinforcement, epoxy coated reinforcement, and stainless reinforcing steel. It also provides information on the relative costs of the materials and products which it covers. It does not deal with structure design or the process of construction or with the post-construction phase of structure management including repair. It is hoped that it will nevertheless increase the understanding of readers in the process of corrosion of reinforcing steels and the ability of key materials and processes to reduce its harmful effects.