  We investigate a model for the high-ionization state gas associated with
observed damped Lyman-alpha systems, based on a semi-analytic model of galaxy
formation set within the paradigm of hierarchical structure formation. In our
model, the hot gas in halos and sub-halos gives rise to CIV absorption, while
the low-ionization state gas is associated with the cold gas in galaxies. The
model matches the distribution of CIV column densities and leads naturally to
kinematic properties that are in good agreement with the data.
  We examine the contribution of both hot and cold gas to sub-damped systems
and suggest that the properties of these systems can be used as an important
test of the model. We expect that sub-DLA systems will generally be composed of
a single gas disk and thus predict that they should have markedly different
kinematics than the damped systems.
  Finally, we find that hot halo gas produces less than one third of Lyman
limit systems at redshift three. We model the contribution of mini-halos (halos
with virial velocities < 35 km/s) to Lyman limit systems and find that they may
contain as much gas as is observed in these systems. However, if we adopt
realistic models of the gas density distribution we find that these systems are
not a significant source of Lyman limit absorption. Instead we suggest that
uncollapsed gas outside of virialized halos is responsible for most of the
Lyman limit systems at high redshift.
