Although chloride is the main source for corrosion of reinforcing steel in coastal buildings, concrete carbonation leads to a uniform corrosion of the steel that would accelerate the crack formation and decrease the structure service life. Therefore, carbonation induced corrosion could be minimized by improving the concrete quality and cover thickness. The objective of this investigation was to study the effect of carbonation on public buildings located up to 800 m from the seashore. Preliminary results based on the analysis of carbonation, resistivity and porosity data suggested the need to increase the concrete cover thickness and concrete quality proportional to the distance from the seashore as well as to their elevation. In general, the higher carbonation coefficients corresponded to the top sections of the evaluated buildings where the measured relative humidity was lower. However, the concrete cracks due
to corrosion were found in the lower sections where humidity was higher. Data from lab specimens exposed to the same environment buildings.
Keywords: carbonation, chlorides, relative humidity. for five years were used to correlate the findings fi-om the public compressive strength, concrete, corrosion, porosity, reinforcement