Climate-related soil saturation and peatland development may have conditioned surface water brownification at a central European lake for millennia

Water brownification has long altered freshwater ecosystems across the northern hemisphere. The intensive surface water brownification of the last 30 years was however preceded by previous long-lasting more humic browning episodes in many catchments. To disentangle a cascade of browning-induced environmental stressors this longer temporal perspective is essential and can be reconstructed using paleolimnological investigations. Here we present a Holocene duration multi-proxy paleolimnological record from a small forest mountain lake in the Bohemian Forest (Czechia) and show that climate-related soil saturation and peatland development has driven surface water brownification for millennia there. A long core retrieved from the central part of the lake was dated using