The impact of land use dynamics at the trading ports on post-conflict economic development in Afghanistan

International trade hubs are vital for post-conflict economic recovery, particularly in landlocked and developing nations. This study examines how changes in land use and land cover (LULC) reflect the progress of reconstruction in Afghanistan’s three major trading hubs, Hairatan, Sherkhan Bandar, and Torghundi, between 2016 and 2023, along the international borders. Harmonized Sentinel-2 imagery (10 m resolution) is classified into five LULC classes: built-up, vegetation, swamp, barren land, and water using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Random Forest (RF) classifiers on Google Earth Engine and Google Colab to map and assess spatial changes. The RF classifier achieved higher accuracies (89–99%) than ANN across all towns. Built-up areas increased in all sites, with Hairatan expanding from 2.23 km² (15%) in 2016 to 3.22 km² (22%) in 2023. Torghundi showed a similar rise from 3.78 km² to 5.38 km², accompanied by a decline in vegetation from 2.54 km² to 1.10 km². Sherkhan Bandar recorded moderate built-up growth alongside seasonal increases in vegetation. A predictive RF model projects a further 53% built-up expansion along the Torghundi railway corridor by 2030. These findings demonstrate that LULC dynamics can serve as measurable indicators of post-conflict recovery while also revealing environmental trade-offs. The study highlights the role of remote sensing for monitoring reconstruction and emphasizes the need to integrate infrastructure development with sustainable land management.