WUHAN - Nearly 1,700 hectares of farmland illegally reclaimed from lakes in Central China's Hubei province has been returned to its natural watery state in a campaign launched three years ago.

The provincial department of water resources said Sunday that it has curbed the decline of its lakes, also creating two new ones since Hubei enacted China's first local regulation on lake protection in October 2012.

Hubei had thousands of lakes in the 1950s, but the number decreased to some 700 due to industrial development, urbanization, over-exploitation of water resources and reclamation.