Lake EyreLake Eyre (ɛər ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in the east-central part of the Far North region of South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains the lowest natural point in Australia, at approximately below sea level. On the rare occasions that it fills completely, it is the largest lake in Australia, covering an area of up to .
LakeA lake is a naturally occurring, relatively large body of water localized in a basin surrounded by dry land. A lake generally has a slower-moving flow than the inflow or outflow stream(s) that serve to feed or drain it. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from the ocean, although, like the much larger oceans, they form part of the Earth's water cycle by serving as large standing pools of storage water. Most lakes are freshwater and account for almost all the world's surface freshwater, but some are salt lakes with salinities even higher than that of seawater.
Tulare LakeTulare Lake (tʊˈlɛəri) or Tache Lake (Yokuts: Pah-áh-su, Pah-áh-sē) is a freshwater lake in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. Historically, Tulare Lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, and the second-largest freshwater lake entirely in the United States based upon surface area. For thousands of years, from the Paleolithic onward, Tulare Lake was a uniquely rich area, which supported perhaps the largest population of Native Americans north of Mexico.
Qattara DepressionThe Qattara Depression (Munḫafaḍ al-Qaṭṭārah) is a depression in northwestern Egypt, specifically in the Matruh Governorate. The depression is part of the Western Desert of Egypt. The Qattara Depression lies below sea level, and its bottom is covered with salt pans, sand dunes, and salt marshes. The depression extends between the latitudes of 28°35' and 30°25' north and the longitudes of 26°20' and 29°02' east. The Qattara Depression was created by the interplay of salt weathering and wind erosion.
Aral SeaThe Aral Sea (ˈærəl ) was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south which began shrinking in the 1960s and largely dried up by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhstan and the Karakalpakstan autonomous region of Uzbekistan. The name roughly translates from Mongolic and Turkic languages to "Sea of Islands", a reference to the large number of islands (over 1,100) that once dotted its waters.
DesertA desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts".
Drainage basinA drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, the drainage divide, made up of a succession of elevated features, such as ridges and hills. A basin may consist of smaller basins that merge at river confluences, forming a hierarchical pattern. Other terms for a drainage basin are catchment area, catchment basin, drainage area, river basin, water basin, and impluvium.
Helmand RiverThe Helmand River (also spelled Helmend, or Helmund, Hirmand; Pashto/Persian: هیرمند / هلمند; Greek: Ἐτύμανδρος (Etýmandros); Latin: Erymandrus) is the longest river in Afghanistan and the primary watershed for the endorheic Sistan Basin. It emerges in the Sanglakh Range of the Hindu Kush mountains in the northeastern part of Maidan Wardak Province, where it is separated from the watershed of the Kabul River by the Unai Pass. The Helmand feeds into the Hamun Lake on the border between Afghanistan and Iran.
Great Salt LakeThe Great Salt Lake (Shoshone: Ti'tsa-pa “Bad Water”) is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particularly through lake-effect snow. It is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric body of water that covered much of western Utah. The area of the lake can fluctuate substantially due to its low average depth of .
Caspian SeaThe Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia: east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia, south of the fertile plains of Southern Russia in Eastern Europe, and north of the mountainous Iranian Plateau of West Asia. It covers a surface area of (excluding the highly saline lagoon of Garabogazköl to its east), an area approximately equal to that of Japan, with a volume of .
