In times of severe flood, the water flow speed is 1 meter per second. In the dry season, it is 10 meters per second. From the beginning to the end of the flood season, the water is mixed with yellow soil and silt. When it becomes clear and its color lightens, some gates are gradually closed over a period of 100 days. During this period, the reservoir is filled with the remaining water. This work begins in early September and ends in early March, at which point it is completely full. The water from this reservoir irrigates all the surrounding lands from early April until May or June. If the flood is delayed, the lands will need water until July. The reservoir water has now irrigated thirty-five thousand feddans of summer crops, and its construction costs amounted to three million pounds. This is the greatest work built during the reign of His Highness Prince Abbas Pasha Hilmi, our late Khedive, and indeed one of the greatest works built in the Nile Valley from the dawn of history to the present day.

Raising and thickening the dam. The work of the project to modify the current dam to hold more water includes the construction of a retaining wall, eighteen centimeters thick, measured horizontally behind the existing structure, and raising the structure by 6 meters above sea level, i.e., 64 meters above the old level. The retaining wall is built to a level of 11 meters, which is 5 meters higher than before. The level of the original dam's roadway is 106.9 meters, and most of the reservoir's level is 106 meters, so it can hold 980 million cubic meters of water. If the dam's height is increased by 5 meters, and the roadway level is 114 meters, and considering the retaining wall and other minor considerations, the new dam's level will be 113 meters, which is 7 meters higher than the original level. The total capacity of the reservoir will be 1,200,000,000 cubic meters. In years with a flood of 1.87 billion cubic meters, this substantial increase is sufficient to irrigate about one million feddans more than before. The cost of the original dam exceeded three million pounds, and the total cost incurred by the government for the dam as it is today is five million Egyptian pounds.