Agricultural intensification developed rapidly in East China since the 1980s, which caused most of the lakes in these areas to become eutrophic at almost the same time. Less is known about the relationship between agricultural intensification and watershed water quality, as well as historical nutrients dynamics and lake eutrophication processes. The study area, a typical agricultural watershed with high-yield grain production characterized by multipond systems in China's Yangtze-Huaihe region, was selected to evaluate the effects of agricultural intensification on P sediment retention using 137Cs dated sediment cores. Experimental results showed that P kept increasing in the multipond sediments during the past decades, which could be attributed almost entirely to agricultural intensification. An inflection point appeared in the 1980s, before which TP showed no or only a slight increase (200 mg x kg(-1)). Thereafter, it increased dramatically (about 400 mg x kg(-1) by the year 2004) due to the extensive application of phosphate fertilizers. The chemical reactive fraction, KCl-extracted phosphorus (KCI-P), accounted for only 0.3% or less of TP. However, NaOH-extracted inorganic P (NaOH-Pi), accounting for 13-46%, was the main factor causing TP to increase due to long-term P fertilization, whereas CaCO3-bound phosphorus (Ca-P), together with residual phosphorus (Res-P) stayed at a relatively stable level. The increasing TP contents indicated that there was a potential to overwhelm the sorption capacity of multipond systems causing continuous water quality deterioration in the watershed and downstream waters. It is implied that P export resulting from agricultural intensification and water deterioration should be taken into account during the formation of watershed management strategies for the water environment.