The falls were historically important as they were the furthest point up the Sénégal River from Saint Louis that could be reached by boat.

Several studies have looked at the feasibility of creating a navigable channel 55 metres (180 ft) in width between the small town of Ambidédi in Mali and Saint-Louis in Senegal, a distance of 905 kilometres (562 mi).

Both the Bakoye and the Bafing rivers have their headwaters in the Fouta Djallon highlands in Guinea which receive heavy rainfall between June and October during the West African Monsoon.

[6] In the 1920s the French colonial government constructed a weir and a small run-of-the-river hydroelectric plant at the Félou falls which was updated in 1992.

The plant used 5 cubic metres per second (180 cu ft/s) of water (about one percent of the river) to drive a 600 kilowatts (800 hp) generator.