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The water quality response to implementation of conservation measures across watersheds has been slower and smaller than expected. This has led many to question the efficacy of these measures and to call for stricter land and nutrient management strategies. In many cases, this limited response has been due to the legacies of past management activities, where sinks and stores of P along the land–freshwater continuum mask the effects of reductions in edge‐of‐field losses of P. Accounting for legacy P along this continuum is important to correctly apportion sources and to develop successful watershed remediation. In this study, we examined the drivers of legacy P at the watershed scale, specifically in relation to the physical cascades and biogeochemical spirals of P along the continuum from soils to rivers and lakes and via surface and subsurface flow pathways. Terrestrial P legacies encompass prior nutrient …