Unraveling long-term changes in lake color based on optical properties of lake sediment

A number of boreal surface waters have become browner over the last two decades. Recovery from acid rain is regarded as an important driver for this lake color increase, indicating a general browner lake color in preindustrial times. However, the lack of long-term monitoring data makes it challenging to unravel historical changes in lake color. In this study, we estimated long-term development in lake color (1800 to 2015) based on the optical properties of alkaline extractable dissolved organic matter (DOM) from sediment using UV–Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy. We found that the present lake color (2015) was significantly browner (four times higher in absorption coefficient) than for the…