The present invention discloses a distribution line adaptive protection method and system based on traveling waves, belonging to the technical field of line protection. At measurement points, far awayfrom a bus, of a fault line, the fault phase initial current traveling waves of the single-phase grounding faults are large, and the non-fault phase is zero; at measurement points, close to the bus,of the fault line, the fault phase initial traveling wave amplitude of the single-phase grounding faults are twice of the non-fault phase, and the polarity is opposite. At the measurement points, faraway from the bus, of the fault line, the fault phase initial current traveling waves of the two-phase grounding faults are large, and the non-fault phase is zero; and at the measurement points, closeto the bus, of the fault line, the initial current traveling waves of the fault phase and the non-fault phase of the two-phase grounding faults have no obvious features. The distribution line adaptive protection scheme can perform accurate and reliable motions for all the types of short-circuit faults. The propagation of the initial traveling waves cannot be influence by a grounding resistance condition, and therefore, the protection scheme can respond to the high-resistance grounding faults.