I found these data for US cities: http://www.circleofblue.org/2012/world/map-2012-water-prices-in-30-major-u-s-cities/

Indeed, price in Atlanta seems to be higher, between $100 and $150  (average bill per month) that may be consistent with your data - higher than in many other US cities (including water scarce California).

Sometimes price reflects water scarcity, but often it is not. Recall that local government is typically a natural monopolist in residential water supply - so price may be higher than the cost, or efficiency may be not the highest.

Here you can find a report with EU water prices - often higher than $2/m3 that you mention: http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/mckinney/ce397/Topics/Water_Pricing/Water_Pricing%282012%29.pdf

Atlanta has an online bill calculator: http://billcalculator.atlantawatershed.org/

Using the site, 400 cubic feet of water (11.34 cubic meters) would cost $1.73 per cubic meter for just the water, not the sewer.  I picked the 400 cubic feet value based on another webpage for Fulton County, GA claiming that was a typical family usage.

One can vary the monthly usage to see the effect on the per unit volume tariff.

For reference, I live in Salem, Oregon.  This city has a population of around 160,000 and is on the northwest coast of the US as opposed to Georgia being on the southeast coast of the US.  The same usage would cost me $1.52 per cubic meter for just the water. 

It is important to note that both Atlanta and Salem charge for waste water disposal based on metered potable water usage.  Thus, one cannot use a cubic meter of water without also paying to dispose of it.  The disposal costs often are greater, per unit volume, than the cost of buying the potable water.  Depending on the purpose of your comparison, you might want to include those costs in your comparison.  The Atlanta online calculator will give you those rates as well.

Those low rates that you've given as "conventional" in the world are probably not good for comparing to "at the meter" residential costs in developed countries.  Several factors are at play.  The first is that such average world costs likely include costs at an unmetered spigot in a public place (such as is common in much of the developing world).  They also might be including industrial usage rates.  Perversely, in the US those that use more water pay much less per cubic meter.  Industrial users in many cities will be paying a small fraction of the $1.50 to $2.00 per cubic meter rate that the average residential user is paying.  This will drag the average unit costs well below the residential costs listed above.

I hope this helps.

Dear researchers,

The tariffs in the mentioned countries as well as some other countries can be found in the following publication:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317319980_Design_and_retrofit_optimization_of_the_cellulose_evaporative_cooling_pad_systems_at_diverse_climatic_conditions

You can find this information here.

https://tariffs.ib-net.org/sites