levee

A low embankment, usually artificially constructed, that runs along the edges of a river or stream designed to protect inhabited river valleys against flooding. Ancient levees were found along large rivers in places such as Egypt and China and are considered among the earliest works of human engineering. During the 1950s, the United States Bureau of Reclamation and the United States Army Corps of Engineers built an extensive system of levees along the Rio Grande River in the Albuquerque Basin of New Mexico in order to monitor the river's flow, control irrigation, and prevent seasonal flooding