In which of the following countries is the per capita use of water maximum?

Concept

Per-capita water use is a normalized measure: the total water use reported for a population is divided by that population. A comparison is meaningful only when the source, year, geographic unit, and definition of “use” are fixed.

Application

This is a UGC NET June 2015 Paper 1 previous-year question. The matching final answer key identifies European Union as the accepted response. That establishes the canonical exam response, not a timeless ranking under every water-use definition.

Contrast

• USA: national withdrawals per resident are high, especially because of energy-sector cooling and irrigation, but this is a single-country statistic.

• European Union: the figure represents an aggregate reporting region whose member states have widely varying water-use profiles; it is the response recognized by the cited exam key.

• China: very large total withdrawals are spread across a much larger population, so total use should not be confused with use per person.

• India: irrigation drives very large total withdrawals, while the large population changes the corresponding per-capita comparison.

Cross-check

Exam grading and factual measurement are different checks. The June 2015 key accepts European Union; standard total-freshwater-withdrawal-per-person datasets rank the USA higher, and the European Union is a bloc rather than a country. The result below is therefore exam-keyed and source-specific.

Result for this PYQ: European Union.