Located north of the Al-Hindiya District, it was designed by British civil engineer William Willcocks in response to the silting up of the Hillah branch of the Euphrates.

Due to changes in the water management of the wider Tigris–Euphrates river system in 1875, severe floodings of the Euphrates downstream from Fallujah occurred.

In 1908, the Ottoman government invited contractors to build a new dam based on revolutionary plans by a French engineer, but no company accepted the assignment.

[1] 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.

[2] 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.