1. Introduction

Coastal regions are complex and dynamic environments of immense ecosystem services. These are equipped with high ecological diversity and critical economic importance and keep changing its shape and position due to water dynamics, mainly associated with waves, tides, winds, periodic storms, sea level change, geomorphological processes such as erosion and accretion. These may be considered as highly vulnerable to environmental changes and have been largely affected by anthropogenic activities (municipal sewage, industrial effluents, agricultural discharges and sewage runoff, natural resource exploitation). Trace element contamination is a serious threat to marine environment and received global attention due to its toxicity, non-degradability (persistence), abundance, subsequent bioaccumulation, and biomagnification through successive trophic levels. Intertidal sediments are potential abiotic matrices of the coastal and estuarine regimes which serve as the useful and potential sink for trace metals. When effluents containing trace metals enter the surface water, metals do not remain in soluble form for a long time and have a tendency to deposit in sediments. Thus, sediments are considered more reliable to assess the pollution status of marine environment.