A word I learned after moving to Mojave: endorheic. A huge area of land from Oregon to Mexico, including the Shuttle landing strip on a dry lake at Edwards, the Black Rock Desert, the Great Salt Lake, Lake Tahoe, Death Valley, and nearly all of Nevada is a set of endorheic basins. Any rain that falls there and rivers that flow through there never make it to the sea. Other than evaporation, it is a huge dead end for the surface water cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin