If you want to use version 3.1 you need to use the following schema:
Note that 3.0 and 3.1 are different: in 3.1 there‘s no Sun mentioned, so simply changing 3_0.xsd to 3_1.xsd won‘t work
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee
http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_1.xsd"
version="3.1" xmlns="http://xmlns.jcp.org/xml/ns/javaee">
</web-app>
Also, make sure you‘re depending on the latest versions in your pom.xml. That is,
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.4</version>
<configuration>
...
</configuration>
</plugin>
and
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
<artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
<version>3.1.0</version>
<scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>
Also, you should compile with Java 7 or 8:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.1</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.7</source>
<target>1.7</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>