The flood deposited rich silt (fertile soil) on the river's banks, allowing the Egyptians to grow crops.

His priests were involved in rituals to ensure the steady levels of flow required from the annual flood.

[6] Although male and wearing the false beard, Hapi was pictured with pendulous breasts and a large stomach, as representations of the fertility of the Nile.

Hapi often was pictured carrying offerings of food or pouring water from an amphora, but also, very rarely, was depicted as a hippopotamus.

During the Nineteenth Dynasty Hapi is often depicted as a pair of figures, each holding and tying together the long stem of two plants representing Upper and Lower Egypt, symbolically binding the two halves of the country around a hieroglyph meaning "union".