Similar but Different: A Benchmark for Measuring Whether Models Actually Use Multispectral Bands

The broad availability of multispectral data is one thing that separates satellite-based machine learning from mainstream computer vision. Sentinel-2 L2A data has 12 surface-reflectance bands, which include visible bands (RGB), red edge, near-infrared (NIR), and shortwave infrared (SWIR). The non-visible bands carry information that distinguishes vegetation types, water, and soil classes that may…