<p>This study aimed to assess the land suitability of greenbelt areas using a GIS-based multi-variable method for preserving the settlement sprawl in the central region of Portugal, which consists of a set of valuable but susceptible ecosystems. In this regard, the present study contributed to estimate the greenbelt suitability index (GSI) and the environmental change index (ECI) to anticipate the environmental impacts of urban and rural settlement sprawls in addition to assess the fire risk plans based on the nine hydrological watersheds. For this purpose, some global and national datasets was considered (e.g., remotely-sensed NASA Earth data, HBASE dataset, EPIC web-GIS, etc.) and updated from 2013 to 2023 (including ten factors of elevation, slope, soil, land covers, geological susceptibility, wildfire inventory, agricultural area, climatic data, river and road network, and urban-rural settlement sprawl) to evaluate greenbelt suitability. Results revealed that the medium to higher GSI quantities, which relates to the higher potential of greenbelt planning in present status (2020), are observed in the urbanized regions of middle part of the study area, particularly in the watersheds of Agueda and Coimbra. Except of Leirira basin, increasing values of ECI in 2030 can influence most of the populated watersheds, particularly Aveiro, Viseo, and Coimbra. Hence, taking a comprehensive decision to decrease the effects of environmental changes are very necessary in these watersheds to curb settlement expansion and reduce wildfire risks. Ultimately, the results confirmed that the research model for greenbelt planning have sufficient correspondence to the upper hand agenda of FIRELAN, in which over than 60% of intended routes and buffers for fuel break zones can be revised for greenbelt planning of the settlements.</p>