Aswan Low Dam
After the Young Turk Revolution and the restructuring of the Ottoman government in 1908, British civil engineer William Willcocks, who had won recognition for his work on the Aswan Low Dam in Egypt, was tasked with the mapping of lower Iraq and the preparation of large-scale irrigation projects on both the Euphrates and the Tigris. Willcocks suggested to use the depressions of Habbaniyah and Abu Dibis, which he had recognised during his survey, as reservoirs for the excess floodwaters of the Euphrates, as well as to reconstruct the Hindiya Barrage so that the land around Hillah could be used for irrigated agriculture. Only the Hindiya Barrage would be completed before the outbreak of World War I.