A new spatial-analytic framework for continuous quantification and representation of watershed characteristics including land-use/landcover (LULC) proportions, geomorphic metrics and climate variables, is presented. The conventional approach for summarizing watershed characteristics along stream reaches or upstream of monitoring stations involves a discrete, vector-based approach whereby watershed boundaries are delineated from digital terrain information, and characterized according to the underlying landcover types or other variables of interest within the drainage area. The landscape accumulation model approach is a simple, continuous (raster-based) approach in which watershed characteristics are propagated downslope through a digital elevation model and can be evaluated at any point along a stream network or its adjacent hillslopes. The outputs can be visualized or queried in a GIS environment at multiple scales, and used as input into hydrologic and water quality models. Canadian case studies will be presented with specific applications to river networks and empirical modelling of water quality in anthropogenically modified landscapes. Landscape accumulation models provide a new approach to an old problem, by giving watershed researchers and practitioners the power to consider “everything, everywhere, all at once”. That is, a synoptic, multi-scale view of watershed characteristics from individual pixels and stream reaches to hillslopes and catchments, to large regions and even entire continents