‘The main cause of nearly all concrete deterioration is the penetration into concrete of aggressive sub- stances, for example, carbon dioxide, chloride ions, or sulfates. In most of these cases, water is also req crete that is highly resistant to the ingress of external harmful substances. This approach is summarized well by a quote from Mehta:? “Impermeability of concrete should be the first line of defense against any of the physiochemical deterioration processes? If this concept is to be used to ensure durable concrete, then to assess the potential durability of in situ concrete it is necessary to measure the near-surface transport properties of the concrete because it is the surface zone concrete (or “covercrete”) that is largely responsible for controlling durability. In this section, details are provided of some of the test techniques available for measuring the near-surface transport properties. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed discussion of all available test techniques but rather a brief description of some of the most commonly used methods and their advantages and disadvantages. One general point that must be borne in mind when discussing these tests is that few of them measure absolute values of fundamental transport properties; what they do provide is an index or relative value and this is useful for comparing one concrete with another. ed to sustain degradation. Therefore, durability can be improved significantly by producing con-