THE US$2.5 TRILLION CORROSION PROBLEM

WHERE THE NUMBER COMES FROM

The figure traces back to the NACE International IMPACT study, now maintained by AMPP. It estimated the global cost of corrosion at US$2.5 trillion per year, equivalent to roughly 3.4% of global GDP based on 2013 figures. The same work concluded that applying better corrosion-control practices could reduce that cost by 15% to 35% — savings on the order of US$375–875 billion annually.

WHAT IT ACTUALLY COVERS

The US$2.5 trillion benchmark is the estimated global economic cost of corrosion across industries — infrastructure, utilities, transportation, manufacturing, energy, pipelines, water and wastewater, marine, government assets and more. It is not a claim that the entire sum is infrastructure loss. The honest reading is simple: corrosion silently consumes maintenance budgets, shortens asset life, and forces expensive decisions after deterioration has already progressed.

WHY CORROSION BECOMES EXPENSIVE

Corrosion is rarely a single isolated defect — it is an ongoing process. The cost accumulates across:

The FHWA/NACE study put the direct U.S. corrosion cost at US$276 billion per year and noted that indirect costs — lost time, outages, delays, failures, litigation — can be just as substantial. Corrosion is not only a materials problem; it is an asset-management problem.

INFRASTRUCTURE MAKES IT CONCRETE

An earlier FHWA study estimated the direct cost of corrosion for U.S. highway bridges at US$8.3 billion per year — a figure that only covered replacing and maintaining bridges, excluding broader user costs such as traffic delays and lost productivity. The same body of work identified drinking-water and sewer systems at US$36 billion per year as one of the largest direct corrosion-cost sectors. Once corrosion reaches critical assets, the real cost includes inspection cycles, access equipment, downtime, traffic management and delayed decisions — not just the patch of steel.

THE INSPECTION GAP

Despite the scale, much corrosion is still judged by eye — visual observation, clipboard notes, inconsistent phone photos, rough area estimates and subjective severity ratings scattered across spreadsheets. Skilled inspectors remain essential, but manual methods make consistent answers hard: How large is the affected area? Has it grown since last time? Which asset is deteriorating fastest? Which defect should be repaired first? Without measurement, corrosion records become a folder of photos — useful for documentation, weak for prioritisation and budgeting.

THE OPPORTUNITY: MEASURABLE CORROSION

The IMPACT findings do not just say corrosion is expensive — they emphasise that better corrosion management measurably reduces cost. That is where CorroScan is aimed: turning mobile inspection photos into corrosion detection, area measurement, severity records and historical tracking, so teams can move from reactive inspection to trend-based maintenance. A small defect that is detected, measured and treated early is far cheaper than the major repair it becomes if left to a subjective note.