Cumbernauld can be considered the aquatic heart of Scotland, being the urban watershed between East and West in the centre of the Central Belt.

[13] For much of its length eastwards from Mollinsburn, Luggie Water formed the historic county boundary between Lanarkshire to the south and Dunbartonshire to the north.

Some of his many verses which mention the Luggie include a poem about a yellowhammer and this unnamed sonnet:[22] LONG yearnings had my soul to gaze upon Fair Italy with atmosphere of fire;

I saw sweet Luggie wind her amber waters Thro' lawns of dew and glens of glimmering green,

Jim Carruth, poet laureate of Glasgow, has a poem called Watershed[23] which is inscribed on the base of Andy Scott's Arria, The Angel of the 'Naud, statue which overlooks the A80 in Cumbernauld.

While it doesn't mention the Luggie by name, the poem, inspired by Cumbernauld's Gaelic name, builds on the theme of watershed to east and west.

There have been reports of large mammals including otters, badgers,[24] pine martens, foxes, mink and roe deer along the river.

There is indeed a drainage ditch choked with rushes and containing little moving water to the west of this hill which initially runs in a southerly direction before taking a south west route and thereafter westerly bearing joined by other ditches along the way before it joins with another burn coming from the south at a place called 'Rumblybugs'[28] next to the road between Wester Glentore farm and Cumbernauld.

From this point to the Luggie's confluence with the Kelvin is a distance of approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) which almost agrees with Groome of the Gazetteer of Scotland.

Gain Burn - At Auchenkilns Holdings from the south a few hundred metres downstream of Garngibboch Bridge near Cumbernauld Rugby Club's ground.

[34][35] Moss Water - From Cumbernauld the Luggie flows past Condorrat, whose name is also from a Gaelic phrase - "Comh Dobhair Alt" - The joint river place.

The lake is maintained at a nearly constant level and drains northward to the Kelvin via the Board Burn rather than into the Luggie.

[41] Modern maps show another balancing pond also exists which does drain south into the Luggie.

Despite Groome's recorded opinion in the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (available online) as a "dull, sluggish, ditch-like stream", there is more beauty to the banks of the Luggie than he saw, for his tardy comments must exclude the stretch of the river through the beautiful glen at Luggiebank and the meanders along its shallow glen west of Mollins.

[45] There is another watercourse in the area of Coatbridge called the Luggie Burn, a tributary of the North Calder Water.

Jane Lindsay from Cumbernauld, who was found murdered on nearby Fannyside Moor in 1880, had been known as "Luggie Jean" in life on account of a deformity which gave the impression of her having an extra ear; it was coincidence that she was killed near the stream of the same name.