Decree-Law No. 8/2021 establishing the Legal Regime for Soil Classification and Qualification.

This Decree-Law, consisting of 30 articles divided into three Chapters, establishes the Legal Regime for Soil Classification and Qualification. It establishes the criteria for classification and qualification of soils and the qualification categories of rural and urban soils within the national territory. These apply to the procedures for drawing up, amending and revising municipal territorial plans, in accordance the Basic Law for Land Use Planning. Administrative easements and public utility restrictions that affect the discipline of occupation, use and transformation of land from their own legal frameworks and which have territorial impact are duly integrated and represented in the territorial municipal plans. In areas covered by administrative easements and public utility restrictions, the respective regimes prevail over other provisions of the land use regimes of the categories to which they belong. Soil classification represents a planning option by which a fundamental distinction is made between the classes of rustic soil and urban soil, considering the nature, functions, potential and basic destination of the soil, which are defined in the municipal territorial.