Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of the parameters and factors that cause heterogeneity in carbonate reservoirs, and examines how they interact with one another. It explores the various scales of heterogeneity, how they are caused, and how they can be minimized, as well as how the scales affect each other, providing practical examples in each chapter. The book concludes by discussing the effect of heterogeneity on petrophysical evaluations. As reducing heterogeneity is the only way to obtain accurate carbonate reservoir characteristics at the regional scale, the book offers an important reference guide for all geologists, engineers, and modelers working with subsurface data.