Results and discussion
3.1. Physico-chemical properties of the collected sediments in the investigated sites
Data in Table S1 show physico-chemical properties of investigated sediment samples. The texture of the sediment samples among different sites was loamy sand (sites 1 and 5), sand (sites 2 and 4) and sandy loam (site 3), with an alkaline pH varying between 8.31 and 9.06. The electrical conductivity (EC) values ranged between 7.5 and 16.8 dS m−1. The lowest and highest average content of organic matter in the samples was 0.96 percent and 3.35 percent, respectively. The sediments of study area were also characterized by high calcium carbonate (71.7–89.9 percent), mainly due to their biogenic origin containing coral reefs and marine shells as well as due to land-derived terrigenous materials.