Base level

[1] The term was subsequently appropriated by William Morris Davis who used it in his cycle of erosion theory.

[7] Base levels may be local when large landmasses are far from the sea or disconnected from it, as in the case of endorheic basins.

[10] A relative drop in base level can trigger re-adjustments in river profiles including knickpoint migration and abandonment of terraces leaving them "hanging".

[11] Base level fall is also known to result in progradation of deltas and river sediment at lakes or sea.

This happened in the Nile during the Zanclean flood when its lower course became, in a relatively short time, a large estuary extending up to 900 km inland from the Mediterranean coast.