Endorheic Basin Formation

The development of a drainage basin whose water has no outlet to the ocean, instead collecting in an interior lake, marsh or salt flat and leaving the system only through evaporation and infiltration, typically forming in arid regions where a basin is enclosed by surrounding high ground or where regional aridity prevents any stream from carrying enough flow to reach the sea. Endorheic basins, including those draining to the Caspian Sea, the Great Salt Lake and much of Central Asia and the American Great Basin, are often highly sensitive to changes in regional precipitation and upstream water use, since their water balance has no ocean outlet to buffer it.