Evapotranspiration (ET) is a central component of the land–atmosphere water and energy exchange, strongly influenced by both meteorological indicators and surface properties. In this study, the drivers and variability of ET in three types of land use were analyzed: natural peatland, agriculture centered near the peatland, and mineral agricultural fields. Using daily meteorological observations, the contributions of temperature, wind speed, relative humidity, and radiation to ET dynamics were quantified. To further capture atmospheric and surface controls, the total column water vapor (TCWV) and soil moisture were incorporated into the analysis. Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) was calculated with the FAO-56 method. Based on crop coefficient (K) curves the actual crop evapotranspiration (ETc) was obtained. In addition, climatic moisture deficit (CMD) was calculated to assess hydroclimatic stress and its distribution across land-use types. The results show that peatlands are characterized by persistently lower CMD and large ETc values in the growing season, while agriculture near the peatland shows intermediate CMD values,, and mineral agricultural systems experience the highest and most frequent deficits. The largest differences occurred between the peatland and the agriculture site, which was explained by the Kruskal-Walis test. The t-test and Kolomogrov-Smirnov tests showed differences between ET0 and ETc values in all considered sites, which shows the necessity of adjusting model evapotranspiration values to specific vegetation cover. Additionally in order to validate the reanalysis soil moisture data the Agreus's soil probes were used. The results show, that ERA5-Land tends to underestimate or overestimate the soil moisture values, depending on the soil type.