It provides a reservoir of water for irrigation and drinking in the arid caatinga environment of the Raso da Catarina.

[2] The Vaza Barria project, which built the dam, was to irrigate 460 hectares (1,100 acres), control floods, support fish farming and supply water to the town of Nova Canudos.

[4] This was apparently a deliberate effort to erase memories of the suppression of a popular revolt by the republican army in 1896–97.

However, the Canudos State Park, created in 1986 to the south of the dam, preserves key sites of the war.

The stated purpose of the park is to make it impossible to forget the martyrs led by Antônio Conselheiro.

The stony aggregate material and artificial sand were derived from quartzite on the right bank of the river beside the dam.

This was repaired, and instruments installed to monitor the embankment, Some cracks appeared, and piezometric pressures were considered high.