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With regard to the creation of river basin plans and programmes of measures according to the EU-Water Framework Directive, the importance of model-supported analyses of nutrient inputs into aquatic systems and the localization of source areas is increasing. Especially in lowland regions artificial drainage installations play a major role, but little information exists about their location within larger river basins. Therefore, artificially drained lands were identified by interpreting aerial photographs and typical site conditions of the drained plots were derived. Then, a GIS-based approach was developed, which allows the delineation of artificially drained lands by combining various site conditions like soil properties and land use type. The approach has been applied to Germany (357000 km) and validity has been checked with small-scale drainage installation maps.