Peas have the potential to play a significant role in ensuring future food security. However, the yields of peas, both in terms of quantity and quality (such as grain content), are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, specifically water deficits. Nowadays, water deficits occur more frequently during crop growth cycles and persist for longer durations. The effects of soil water stress on plant development and growth are complex, as they depend on soil water availability, the modulation of available soil elements, and the plant’s ability to acclimate to continuous stress or remember previous stress events. To understand the strategies underlying plant responses to water stress events, we conducted controlled experiments with pea plants subjected to optimal water conditions, and different types of water stresses: transient stress during vegetative or reproductive periods, recurrent stress, and continuous stress throughout the entire growth cycle. An integrative approach, including a structure-function ecophysiological framework characterizing plant hydromineral nutrition, enriched with root and nodule transcriptomic analyses (RNA-seq), revealed the mechanisms underlying specific and common responses to the different types of water stress. In addition, a complementary field experiment was carried out in order to validate the observations made under controlled conditions and to assess the level of expression of the candidate genes identified. This study introduces a fresh perspective by highlighting the importance of plant memory and acclimation in designing ideotypes that are more resilient to longer stresses, or multiple stress events in the context of climate change. This innovative approach has the potential to enhance crop productivity and ensure food security. This work was supported by Plant2Pro as part as the ARECOVER project, by FUI, BPIFrance, the Regional Council of Burgundy, Dijon Metropole, and FEDER, as part as the EAUPTIC project and by ANR-PIA as part as the PHENOME-EMPHASIS project.