Decadal-scale variations in total organic carbon (TOC) concentration in lake water since AD 1200 in two small lakes in southern Sweden were reconstructed based on visible–near-infrared spectroscopy (VNIRS) of their re-cent sediment successions. In order to assess the impacts of local land-use changes, regional variations in sulfur, and nitrogen deposition and climate variations on the inferred changes in TOC concentration, the same sediment records were subjected to multi-proxy palaeolimnological analyses. Changes in lake-water pH were inferred from diatom anal-ysis, whereas pollen-based land-use reconstructions (Land-scape Reconstruction Algorithm) together with geochemical records provided information on catchment-scale environ-mental changes, and comparisons were made with available records of climate and population density. Our long-term re-constructions reveal that inferred lake-water TOC concen-trations were generally high prior to AD 1900, with addi-tional variability coupled mainly to changes in forest cover and agricultural land-use intensity. The last century showed significant changes, and unusually low TOC concentrations were inferred at AD 1930–1990, followed by a recent in-crease, largely consistent with monitoring data. Variations in sulfur emissions, with an increase in the early 1900s to a peak around AD 1980 and a subsequent decrease, were identified as an important driver of these dynamics at both sites, while processes related to the introduction of mod-ern forestry and recent increases in precipitation and tem-perature may have contributed, but the effects differed be-tween the sites. The increase in lake-water TOC concentra-tion from around AD 1980 may therefore reflect a recovery process. Given that the effects of sulfur deposition now sub-side and that the recovery of lake-water TOC concentrations has reached pre-industrial levels, other forcing mechanisms related to land management and climate change may become the main drivers of TOC concentration changes in boreal lake waters in the future.