Stepped ogee spillways are one of the most widely used types of dams that are used in most dam construction projects, including small and large dams. The inception point of aeration on these spillways is an important place in determining the range of single-phase and two-phase flow, which characterize the areas at risk of cavitation. In this paper, the effect of roughness on the location of the inception point of flow aeration (IPFA) on the stepped Ogee spillways was investigated. For this purpose, the surface of the steps of a laboratory model was covered with gravel with specific granulation. The result indicated that by roughing the surface of steps, the displacement of IPFA moves towards the crest (upstream) and the length of non-aerated area on the stepped spillways is decreased by about 15 percent. The results declared that there is a direct exponentially relation between flow rate and displacement IPFA. At low flow rates, most of the flow turbulence is due to the roughness created by the geometry of the steps, hence the role of surface roughness is negligible, while with increasing flow rate, its role in increasing the flow turbulence increases, and its effect on displacement of IPFA becomes obvious. At a given flow, the length of the non-aerated is decreased with increasing roughness.In this study, the effect of surface roughness of steps on the displacement of IFPA was investigated experimentally. To this end number of laboratory experiments were programmed. To investigate the objective of this study, a stepped ogee spillway in which its horizontal part of steps was covered by gravel with given grain size. The results declared that three factors including the flow rate, the roughness caused by steps dimension (ks), and the roughness of steps surface (ns) are effective in the displacement of IPFA. In this study, the change in the size of the steps and the longitudinal slope of the stepped chute on the displacement of IPFA has not been investigated because it has already been studied by other researchers. There is a direct exponential relationship between the discharge and the IPFA (length of the non-aerated area on the stepped ogee spillway). As the flow rate increases, the location of this point is transferred downstream exponentially. With the increase of flow, the role of roughness in IPFA displacement became clearer and the reason is the increase of its role in creating and increasing flow turbulence. On average, surface roughness can be about 15% effective in reducing the displacement of IPFA.