See also: Stoppings of Aswan

Already inhabited there is: 20000 years the valley of the the Nile was submerged by a gigantic rising on average every ten years. With the wire of the evolution of the companies and their knowledge of hydrological sciences, works of art, simpler with most complex, the men tried to dam up the whims of the river with like subjacent idea recovering the muds and the vases carted by the river to enrich the grounds. The left bank was arranged as of -3200 with a network of dams and basins and Right Bank starting from the kings of by the installation of a natural channel until the depression of the Fayoum which was used as tank for purposes of regulation of water of raw and of supply of this water resource in dry season.

The vestiges of the oldest stopping were found in the valley of Wadi Garawa. The stoppings of Rivet washer and Damiette were built at the 19th century.

In 1902, the British financed the first stopping established in the south of Aswan to height of the first of the six cataracts of the Nile, intended to allow the arable land exploitation to sprinkle the cotton fields by the autochtones. Hardly gathered cotton was then exported in England in order to be woven; the fabrics reimported in Egypt were then sold with the full price with the Egyptians.

Inaugurated in 1908, length 2,5 km, it was raised and thickened twice, in 1912 and 1933, submerging with the passage the area of Low-Nubie on 295 km.

In spite of a drastic policy of birth control, the point of balance is reached with the beginning of the year fifty with a population growth which reaches 3% per annum. It became imperative then for the survival of a population, which had just crossed the course of 50 million, to ensure a multiannual irrigation to ensure a rate of three harvests per annum. Rather than to raise the original work once again, the construction project of a new stopping is undertaken. Nowadays, the utility of the “ old prejudice ” is reduced to the electrical production and the regulation of the high stopping during the periods of strong risings.