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The Yanqi basin is the main irrigated and active agroecosystem in semi-arid Xinjiang, northwestern China, which further seeks responses to the profound local water-related drawbacks in relation to the unceasing landscape desiccation and scant precipitation. Yet, it comes as an astonishment that a few reported near-surface items and water vapor fluxes as so far required for water resources decision support, particularly in a scarce observation data region. As a contributive effort, here we adjusted the sensible heat flux (H) calibration mechanism of Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) to high-resolution satellite dataset coupled with in-situ observation, through a wise guided “anchor” pixel assortment from surface reflectance-α, Leaf area index-LAI, vegetation index-NDVI, and surface temperature (<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi>P</mi><mrow><mi>c</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>l</mi><mi>d</mi></mrow></msub><mo>,</mo><mtext> </mtext><msub><mi>P</mi><mrow><mi>h</mi><mi>o</mi><mi>t</mi></mrow></msub></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>) to model the robustness of energy fluxes and Evapotranspiration-ETa over the basin. Results reasonably reflected ETa which returned low RMSE (0.6 mm <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">d</mi><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>), MAE (0.48 mm <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">d</mi><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>) compared to in-situ recordings, indicating the competence of SEBAL to predict vapor fluxes in this region. The adjustment unveiled the estimates of the land-use contribution to evapotranspiration with an average ranging from 3 to 4.69 mm <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">d</mi><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>, reaching a maximum of 5.5 mm <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msup><mi mathvariant="normal">d</mi><mrow><mo>−</mo><mn>1</mn></mrow></msup></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>. Furthermore, findings showed a high striking energy dissipation (LE/Rn) across grasslands and wetlands. The vegetated surfaces with a great evaporative fraction were associated with the highest LE/Rn (70–90%), and water bodies varying between 20% and 60%, while the desert ecosystem dissipated the least energy with a low evaporative fraction. Still, besides high portrayed evaporation in water, grasslands and wetlands varied interchangeably in accounting for the highest ETa followed by cropland. Finally, a substantial nexus between available energy (Rn-G) and ETa informed the available energy, influenced by NDVI to be the primary driver of these oases’ transpiration. This study provides essentials of near-surface energy fluxes and the likelihood of ETa with considerable baseline inferences for Yanqi that may be beneficial for long-term investigations that will attend in agrometeorological services and sustainable management of water resources in semi-arid regions.