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The gas-phase and stellar metallicities have proven to be importantparameters to constrain the star formation history of galaxies. However, HIIregions associated with recent star-formation may not have abundances typicalfor the galaxy as a whole and it is believed that the bulk of the metals may becontained in the neutral gas. It is therefore important to directly probe themetal abundances in the neutral gas, which can be done by using absorptionlines imprinted on a background quasar. Recently, we have presented studies ofthe stellar content of a small sample of such quasar absorbers with HI columndensities measured to be in the sub-Damped Lyman-alpha to Damped Lyman-alpharange. Here, we present observations covering 300 nm to 2.5 microns of emissionline spectra of three of these absorbing-galaxies using the long-slitspectrograph X-Shooter on the VLT. This allows us to compare the neutral andionised phase metallicities in the same objects and relates these measures topossible signature of low-metallicity gas accretion or outflows of gas enrichedby star formation. Our results suggest that the abundances derived inabsorption along the line-of-sight to background quasars are reliable measuresof the overall galaxy metallicities. In addition to a comparison of abundancesin different phases of the gas, a potential observational consequence ofdifferences in fueling mechanisms for disc galaxies is the internaldistribution of their chemical abundances. We present some evidence for smallnegative metallicity gradients in the three systems. The flat slopes are inline with the differences observed between the two phases of the gas. Theseresults suggest that a comparison of the HI and HII metallicities is a robustindicator of abundance gradients in high-redshift galaxies and do not favourthe presence of infall of fresh gas in these objects.

A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - V. Neutral and Ionised Phase Metallicities