# Flow matching for Sentinel-2 super-resolution: implementation, application, and implications

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.00367 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00367/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 22 of its 58 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 22 of 22)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
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- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Encoder-Decoder with Atrous Separable Convolution for Semantic Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.02611/) (2018)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [SegFormer: Simple and Efficient Design for Semantic Segmentation with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.15203/) (2021)
- [Photo-Realistic Single Image Super-Resolution Using a Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04802/) (2016)
- [Image Super-Resolution via Iterative Refinement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.07636/) (2021)
- [ESRGAN: Enhanced Super-Resolution Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.00219/) (2018)
- [Diffusion Models in Vision: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.04747/) (2022)
- [Real-ESRGAN: Training Real-World Blind Super-Resolution with Pure Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.10833/) (2021)
- [The Perception-Distortion Tradeoff](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06077/) (2017)
- [Multisample Flow Matching: Straightening Flows with Minibatch Couplings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14772/) (2023)
- [Implicit Diffusion Models for Continuous Super-Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16491/) (2023)
- [A U-Net Based Discriminator for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.12655/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Meet Remote Sensing: Principles, Methods, and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.08926/) (2024)
- [Remote Sensing Image Super-resolution and Object Detection: Benchmark and State of the Art](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03260/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Developing robust techniques for super-resolution of satellite imagery involves navigating commonly observed trade-offs between spectral fidelity and perceptual quality. In this work, we introduce a flow matching model for 4x super-resolution of 10-m Sentinel-2 visible and near-infrared bands over the conterminous United States (CONUS) using a dataset of 120,851 10-m Sentinel-2 and 2.5-m resampled NAIP imagery pairs acquired on the same day. Our results showed that the flow matching model outperformed diffusion and Real-ESRGAN models in pixel-wise accuracy in a single sampling step using the Euler method. When evaluated with a second-order Midpoint solver, our model generated perceptually realistic super-resolved imagery in only 20 sampling steps, effectively navigating the perception-distortion trade-off at inference time without retraining. We used this model to produce a super-resolved 2.5-m 4-band CONUS imagery product derived from 2025 10-m Sentinel-2 annual composites, consisting of over 1.58 trillion pixels. We further evaluated the use of super-resolved data on a land cover classification task using semantic segmentation models. Finally, we generated a yearly 2.5-m land cover product for the Chesapeake Bay watershed for 2020-2025. An accuracy assessment against 25,000 ground truth points revealed an overall accuracy of 89.11% for the annual land cover product. We conclude that flow matching is an effective generative modeling approach for super-resolution of Sentinel-2 imagery compared to diffusion and Generative Adversarial Network-based methods, and has strong implications for expanding access to high-resolution imagery for geospatial applications that demand fine spatial detail.