A farmland drainage criterion is one of the most important references for determination of scale and layout of farmland drainage construction. Recently, the environmental, ecological and social effects of farmland drainage appear more apparently and get more and more attention. Therefore, how to take its multi-effects into full consideration, to evaluate the benefits of farmland drainage construction objectively and to determine the appropriate scale and layout of drainage project are the main issues urgent to be solved for the farmland drainage criteria research. The research status of farmland drainage criteria was generalized from the perspective of economy, environment, ecology and society. And its multi-attributes in these terms were discussed in greater details here. In addition, the determination of drainage criteria just considering its economic benefits but ignoring its environmental, ecological and societal effects is pointed out as its main disadvantage. Aiming that, the necessity of research on the integrated control criteria of farmland drainage was raised. Besides, its development trend and some questions needed deeper research were also illustrated.