A system and a method performed by a source node for communicating data packets in the network comprising dividing a payload for data transmission into a plurality of source chunks with each source chunk comprising a significance level; performing, according to the significance level of each of the plurality of source chunks, adaptive network coding on each source chunk to obtain a plurality of coded chunks in a plurality of coding groups, where a significance level of coded chunks in at least two of the plurality of the coding groups is different, and wherein each coding group of the plurality of coding groups comprises at least one coded chunk having the same first significance level; generating a first coded data packet comprising a header and a payload comprising the plurality of coded chunks; and transmitting the first coded data packet to a destination node.