In geology, lake capture is the process of capture of the waters collected in a lake by a neighbor river basin.

The occurrence of a lake capture is mainly controlled by the water balance at the lake's basin and the changes in topography due to erosion, sedimentation, and tectonism. If evaporation at the surface of a lake, plus the water losses through underground infiltration and plant evapotranspiration are high enough to account for all precipitation water collected by the lake, then the lake becomes endorheic

Endorheic

An endorheic basin is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow to other bodies of water such as rivers or oceans...

, closed, or internally-drained. This situation remains until the water balance changes again and the lake overburdens the limits of its basin or until the lake capture occurs. Opening the drainage of an endorheic

Endorheic

An endorheic basin is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow to other bodies of water such as rivers or oceans...

lacustrine basin by fluvial erosion generally implies a lake capture.

Lake captures are therefore very sensitive to the preexisting topography as well as to climatic and lithological factors.