  Damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs), seen in absorption against a background
quasar, provide the most detailed probes available of element abundances in the
Universe over > 90 % of its age. DLAs can be used to observationally measure
the global mean metallicity in the Universe and its evolution with time.
Paradoxically, these observations are more difficult at lower redshifts, where
the absorber rest-frame UV spectra are cut-off due to the atmospheric
absorption. We present here high-resolution VLT/UVES observations of several
elements contained in three DLAs and one sub-DLA with 0.6<z_abs<0.9. We detect
Mg I, Mg II, Fe II, Zn II, Cr II, Mn II, Ti II and Ca II. Our observations more
than double the high-resolution sample of [Zn/H] at z<1. We also report the
discovery of three metal-rich systems, whereas most previous measurements show
low N(HI)-weighted mean metallicity projecting to about 1/6th solar level at
z=0. We derive [Zn/H]=-0.11+/-0.04 at z_abs=0.725, [Zn/H]=-0.54+/-0.20 at
z_abs=0.740 and [Zn/H]=-0.49+/-0.22 at z_abs=0.652, plus one additional upper
limit ([Zn/H]<-0.36 at z_abs=0.842). These measurements confirm the existence
of quasar absorbers with relatively high metallicities based on abundance
estimates free from the effect of dust depletion. Possible implications of
these results for the metallicity of neutral gas phase in the past ~ 8 Gyr are
presented and compared with models.
