Gabions
Gabion means "bird cage." It's a building technique that holds dry rock together with metal cages similar to a bird cage.
It doesn't take a lot of skill or fancy equipment and it slows water flow but doesn't stop it, which is enormously helpful in the desert for preventing erosion and stopping the cycle of devastating floods which promote desertification. When built across wadis (also known as washes, arroyos or gullies), it can help create semi-permanent streams to help provide a reliable source of water and start regreening the desert while also reducing loss of valuable top soils.
It does so in part by trapping eroding sands and silt behind it and over time establishing a partially underground reservoir so the water doesn't simply evaporate in the heat. All dams get a build up like this behind them but when the goal is producing electricity plus a huge reservoir of water, it's viewed as a problem because it gradually fills the reservoir and if not periodically removed will eventually become solid ground.
When building gabions across a wadi (dry stream bed) to serve as a porous check dam, this is a feature, not a bug, because it's how the stream becomes a semi-permanent water source under hot, dry conditions. The sand can also help provide water filtration, potentially reducing the amount of water treatment needed to establish a potable drinking water supply for human consumption.
There are other building techniques for check dams which are primarily intended to slow water flow so heavy rainfall doesn't cause disastrous flooding and erosion. So far, my reading suggests gabions are the primary type of check dam used for turning wadis into semi permanent streams in deserts to reverse desertification
It's surprisingly hard to find good tutorials on how to build gabions and use them as water management infrastructure in the desert. Here are a few things I've found that look helpful. It's mostly videos and I've annotated how long they are.
Video: Reversing Desertification with Gabions. About 1 minute.
Video: Reversing the Cycle of Desertification 4:08
Video: How to build a gabion retaining wall From the UK (with fancy equipment you may not have) 2:08 minutes
3 minute video in Hindi under field conditions.
Pictures and written instructions, no video: How to build gabion walls.
This video is over 30 minutes: