From Brazil to India and from California to Detroit, taps are running dry, as the water crisis goes global.

Detroit grabbed headlines when the city cancelled the water and sewerage service for more than 50,000 residents for lack of payment. But Detroit’s trials are not unique.

“Caught between unaffordable rising water rates and the imposition of European-wide austerity measures, thousands of families in Spain, Portugal, and Greece have had their water service cut off,” writes Maude Barlow in the August 3 edition of The Nation. Barlow has served as senior adviser on water to the president of the UN General Assembly.